


Unstuck in Time

by laCommunarde



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: M/M, Memories, Shock, Spoilers for Season 1, Time Masters are a-holes, Vampires
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-20
Updated: 2017-01-29
Packaged: 2018-08-23 12:18:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 31,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8327554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laCommunarde/pseuds/laCommunarde
Summary: The process of becoming a bounty hunter the first time sucks, particularly the method they grabbed for getting people to live several lifetimes and become unstuck in time. Mick would know. However Mick doesn't know if the process will be any different if one isn't killed as part of it.





	1. Chapter 1

From the moment when Kronos had taken off his helmet aboard his own timeship, Len knew he was screwed. Whatever happened from here was up to this Mick, who had had all but his burning resentment at the world wrenched away from him by the Time Masters they were running from, a point only driven home by the threat to Lisa, which Mick before, even when flaming mad, would never have dreamed of making. Len felt sick. 

Mick now, Kronos, pulled him up to his knees. “You know what? I have half a mind to do to you what was done to me.” 

Len tried to put his hands on Kronos’s to pull himself up, but they were still handcuffs and he couldn’t get the angle: the cuffs were clearly designed with him in mind. “The being reborn thing? I’ll pass.”

Kronos laughed. Len winced at the ragged edges of it. “You’re my prisoner now. You don’t get to decide what I can and can’t do anymore.”

“Is this because I abandoned you on that shithole or was this a long standing thing, because we had an agreement that for this mission, we would play it like I was your boss, at least till we found out if they were trustworthy. If you had a problem, you could have brought it up anytime.”

Kronos tossed him back as though disgusted with him. “Both. You abandoning me there was a clear end of our agreement.”

Len sighed, trying again to reason with angry Kronos, whom he could only hope was still Mick enough that he could be talked down. “Our partnership or our agreement? You’ll have to be more specific.”

Kronos tipped his head at him, face showing his confusion. “Do you mean to say you don’t consider our partnership over?”

“I considered it a temporary separation. You needed to be off the ship. I needed you not to be dead. I figured I’d pick you up afterwards. A month, tops. But if you want it to be more permanent, fine. We can be done. Drop me off in 2016 and I won’t bug you again. Kill the team, fine. I’ll miss a couple of them, Sara, Jax, Stein, but if you wanna, I won’t stop you. But if you touch a hair on my sister’s head, the promise is the same as it always was: I will kill you.”

“You didn’t consider abandoning me to starve to death on that hellhole an end to our relationship. Interesting.”

“When you fucked up with the fire, I didn’t consider that an end to our relationship, but you could no longer be on the job. Same thing.”

Kronos picked him up again. “So we’re still partners?”

Len licked his lips and took a deep breath. “If you still want to be. But considering you’ve been hunting us down and trying to kill us, I think that makes it pretty clear what you want.”

“Very interesting.” Kronos put a hand on Len’s cheek, forcing their eyes to meet. “And if I decided to make you like I am anyway, what would you say?”

Len shrugged off Kronos’ touch. His hands were a different temperature than Mick’s had been which was sending alarm bells off in his head. What had they put him through that did that? “I don’t fancy being the Time Masters’ bitch. I prefer to choose who I’m gonna work for.”

That got a momentary smile on Kronos’ face before the expression was gone. “You wouldn’t be. You’d be mine.”

“Is that what this is about? Fine, you want to be the one in charge. You get to be on our next heist.”

Kronos shook his head, setting his jaw. “That is not what this is about.”

“Then why don’t you tell me what it’s about, Mick?”

“It was supposed to be you and me,” Kronos told him. Len felt his heart sink. 

“And the job. You know that,” he reminded Mick if he was still in there at all. “And currently, you are threatening the job. But I’m fine with that if you need to go get vengeance on them for something. Or we could leave them to it. Go back to-.”

Kronos interrupted him. “You think I’m the only one threatening the job?”

Len closed his eyes and frowned. When he reopened them, he again returned his gaze to Kronos. “I am not having this conversation with you now, but no, I don’t think you’re the only one threatening the job.”

Kronos nodded. “You’re still you. Good.”

Len laughed. “Funny. I should be asking you that question.”

Kronos again cut him short on the last syllable. “And it’s still ‘you and me, we look after each other’?”

Len sighed. “This is really not the time, but yes, if you still want it to be, it is. However, somehow, it doesn’t seem like you still want that.”

Kronos nodded, leaning closer. “If you still want that, kiss me.”

“Somehow, Kronos, I’m not in the mood.”

“Now or never. If you still want to be partners, kiss me.”

“Now is not the time," Len repeated.

“I repeat: now or never.”

“Or you’ll do what?”

Kronos sat back. “Five…”

Len shook his head. “What?” 

“Four…”

“Are you actually counting-?”

“Three…”

“Down?! What the hell? Mick!”

“Two. One more shot, before you give me up forever.”

“Mick, fine! You want me to kiss you, you’d better lean closer so I can. You handcuffed me to the fucking wall, and these aren’t your average handcuffs!”

Kronos leaned closer. Len leaned forward and met his lips. Kronos moved to quickly for Len to follow and Len found himself with Kronos’s hand around the back of his head, lips sucking on his lips. Len couldn’t help but melt into it a little. “Damnit, Mick,” he whispered into Kronos’s lips. Then Len’s mouth was filled with something that burned, and something that tasted like blood, his own: he’d been punched in the face enough to recognize the taste. He found himself struggling to get away. The handcuffs held fast, as did Kronos’ hand. Kronos’ other hand found his jaw, tipping his head back so some of the burning liquid went down his throat. Then Kronos pulled away. Len sat there, dazed. His throat still burned. “What the hell was that?” he whispered.

Kronos put back on his helmet. “Don’t die till I get back. I’m going to go have a little chat with your new friends.”


	2. Chapter 2

Len, throat still burning with whatever Kronos had given him, checked for his lockpick pockets, and realized with sickening dread that he had not requested they be put into his clothes. No sleeve pockets, no reachable lockpicks, no getting out of these handcuffs, if they even had normal locks anyway: somehow, he doubted he could easily get out of anything anyone who used to be Mick had put him in, not if he intended him to stay there. 

He saw his gun on the wall. If he froze the metal, it would shatter. He kicked it down and then kicked off his shoes to more easily manipulate it, and took a deep breath. He was aiming the cold gun at his hands; if he missed. Well, he wouldn’t think about that. He ducked his head down, gave a silent plea of “don’t miss” and shot. Pain rocketed through his hand, his wrist and then stopped in a sickening way, like the time he had blown C4 too close to him and had not been able to hear anything for hours. 

He opened his eyes to see that the cold gun had done its job, to his hand. He could see through his hand. He touched the metal with his other hand and winced, pulling back. He had definitely shot the metal as well; it just had not done any good against the metal. As for his hand – he glanced back at it, moved his arm, and found that he could see through it. There was no way he was getting it back to life after that. He tugged at the handcuffs again. He didn’t feel it at all, except a slight tugging down in his wrist. There was one way out. He knew from experimenting with the cold gun early on that he could freeze objects and shatter them. If he did that to his hand that would let him get free and make sure Kronos didn’t kill any of the team - his mind flashed to some of the things Canary had been working on, and then to Pretty Boy with his Atom Suit – or any of the team kill him. He was never getting his hand back, even if he didn’t shatter it.

He shattered it. The nerves it was attached to screamed, shooting violent shocks of pain up into his brain. He screamed, and as he was screaming, his hand that still had the handcuff attached slipped down to cradle his wrist against him. At least he was free. He staggered to his feet after Kronos. Even brainwashed, he was still Mick. 

He wasn’t hard to track, and wasn’t exactly making any efforts to be sneaky. Len used this to his advantage as he followed him, not making any efforts himself to hide. He was still in blinding pain, and by the time he got to the gate of the secret mountain hideout that was Nanda Parbat, it had turned into a throbbing ache that went up to his shoulder. He promised it that Gideon would treat it as soon as he got back to the Waverider, as if telling it that would help it go away for the time being. He shoved his hand in his armpit, and that helped a little.

Nonetheless, they were getting ready to shoot him when Len ran in. “Don’t shoot!” he shouted and indicated they should take of Kronos’ helmet. They did and saw Mick. The captain knocked him out.

\--

Len kept his wrist hidden in his armpit. It was still stinging and throbbing, and by now the throbbing had taken over his shoulder as well, but he could deal with it. He was also very cold – from the fourth degree frostbite, no doubt. He would also deal with that, just as soon as they were done here and as soon as he got back to his room to make sure no other frostbite had occurred further up his arm. 

After they heard enough out of Mick, they closed the speaker off and turned on Len.

“You owe us an explanation.” What explanation were they looking for? 

“Yes, it's quite remarkable Mr. Rory is working for the Time Masters, considering you killed him.” Oh right, they had actually believed he had killed Mick, and he hadn’t dissuaded them of that notion. It wasn’t supposed to have been a problem, but he still would have liked maybe one of them to not think he killed his partner.

He picked his shoulder up and glared down all of them. “If you think back, I never actually said I killed him.”

“No, you just let us think that you did.” 

Oh for the love of… “I didn't have to try too hard, did I?” He glanced back at Kronos. “Well, maybe I should have. And at least he wouldn't have would up a chew toy for the Time Masters.”

“But if you did, we wouldn't have this opportunity.” Len’s mind did a spittake and he stared at Rip. Cold washed through his system (it was strange, when it came down to it, he liked cold puns, he didn’t actually like being cold, at least not this cold. He would have to speak to Gideon about that.). But Rip’s comment said things about his willingness to use torture and other less than moral methods. He felt his heart rate start to elevate. Whatever Rip wanted, he would no doubt order Len to participate in, and Len couldn’t do it, not to Mick. Jeez, hadn’t he already proved that? 

“An opportunity? To do what?”

“To reform Mr. Rory.” He wished them luck with that. But what he had seen and what he saw now in that cell wasn’t any Mick he knew. And he (and Mick too) hated the word reform. It spoke of at best classes, at worst, juvie and prison. They stuck people in solitary because they wanted to reform them. They’d stuck Mick in solitary more time then he knew what to do with. The rest of the group was still talking. He should probably focus on that.

“I know what it's like to be trained by an organization for one purpose, to kill, and the kind of loyalty that it can inspire. I need to know that we can reach Rory. For my own sake,” Sara said. Oh fuck that. If they thought it was possible to reform Mick, fine, he wished them luck for all he didn’t believe it, but if they wanted to use him to show them it was possible for some inner motivation, screw that. Heck, he might even break not-Mick out of there as is and send him off.

“The Time Masters took one of our own and turned him against us. I say we undo their handiwork.” Len turned his gaze on the others. One of our own, they had called Mick. One of our own. They sure hadn’t considered him that when they all but asked Len to take him out back and shoot him. But now he was one of their own. He felt his breath come short with how much he didn’t like that logic. 

“Rory saved my life back in the gulag. He's more than just a criminal and an arsonist. He's a member of our team.” 

Len looked at him again, sitting so still. He wasn’t tinkering with anything. He didn’t rub his hands or pace around or look for things to start a fire with. Instead he sat, displaying a patience the old Mick, his Mick, didn’t know. “He's a lost cause,” he said. He turned away and shivered again. God damnit, was Gideon trying to freeze them in here? Had Kronos hacked the ship to think the temperature was normal when it really wasn’t? If so, no one else seemed to be noticing it. Actually, come to think of it, other than the cold, the throbbing had starting down his back now and between that, the stinging in his wrist, and other symptoms of whatever he had done to himself, he didn’t feel any more right than the Mick not looking for his lighter did. Other symptoms to add to the list included extreme shortness of breath, probably a result from the frostbite. He should probably ask Gideon about that sooner rather than later. 

“Oh, I wouldn't be so sure about that. You will see that miracles abound on this old timeship,” Rip said. Well if that wasn’t the corniest line, cornier than any of that little inventor kid’s puns, which had the benefit of being pretty darn hilarious. He wondered if Rip had thought that one up in advance, trying to be funny.

“Well, let’s debate this somewhere else, shall we? I don’t want to be around him longer than I have to.” 

He wanted to get out of here to look at his wrist and to have Gideon look at his wrist, and body. And he was relatively sure they didn’t know what he had done to his hand, and he didn’t want them to know. Look what happened to Mick when the good captain didn’t find him useful anymore. Actually, come to think of it, how would he do pickpocketing now, and still hold his gun. He could modify the gun, he supposed. Add on a hook onto his wrist, maybe controlled by his wrist muscles and tendons. Be Ash from The Evil Dead. If needed, and if worst came to worst, he could better amputate his wrist to give him greater control of them. But he would need a new partner. He wasn’t sure anybody would work with a thief who lacked a hand though. Maybe if he positioned himself as solely the mastermind instead of the pickpocket? Maybe he could try running with the Flash. He found himself wondering what Barry’s reaction in response to his hand would be. (God, what he wouldn’t give for the Star Wars Hand Rebuilder.) 

But, for now, he needed to get back to his room so he could make sure it wasn’t getting an infection or shock. He knew the risks of fourth degree frostbite. Though typically, amputation was considered on the list of bad side effects, but he didn’t have to worry about that. He was hit by another spasm of elevated heart rate, which caused elevated breathing. He tried to take a few deep breaths to calm his heart – a method he had learned in prison one time in the most useless mandatory anger management class. It didn’t really seem to be working though. He wondered if it was something Mick as Kronos had given him. He didn’t want to think about it: it made him feel like his insides were twisting.

The others started filing out of the prison and he realized Rip had been talking, saying other words of encouragement about Mick. Well, Mick could go screw himself. He glanced at the man in the cell again. Be a bounty hunter with him for all time, huh? Well, how about he say no to that offer. He just wanted to finish the mission and get home. See Lisa again. Go taunt Barry and Cisco. And then see what could be done about his hand. Maybe there was a thing STAR Labs could do. Actually, knowing Cisco and his t-shirts and general nerdiness, the kid had probably built a prototype hand and left it somewhere. He could talk him out of it, surely. With enough Star Wars references.

He got up to follow Sara out of the prison, and his head swam. Shit, as soon as he got back to room, he would have to ask Gideon. Maybe the AI had something they could give him quietly, without telling any of the others. He pushed himself through it and got to the hallway before another attack of needing air hit him. He sagged against the wall, momentarily seeing black. There was a chattering noise, and he realized it was his teeth. He clamped down on them to stop them from chattering.

Sara, next to him, looked over in alarm. “Leonard, are you alright?”

Len took a deep breath and looked at Sara. “I’ll be fine. I just need to get back to my room.” Unfortunately, he tried to wave her off with his right hand.

She grabbed his arm. “Fuck! Len! What happened to your hand?!” 

Len glared. “Kronos had me in handcuffs I couldn’t break, so I aimed my cold gun at them. Unfortunately, I missed.”

“You froze off your hand? Rip! We need Gideon’s help immediately.”

“I’m fine. I’ll handle it,” he said, but his legs stopped holding him. He sank to the floor.

Gideon’s voice came over the system. “His body is going into shock. It also appears he has lost his hand due to fourth degree frostbite.”

“How on earth did he get that?” Rip’s voice sounded pissed off, which he probably deserved. After all, he had just made himself useless to Rip’s calculations – killer, klepto and pyro, and two of those were out. 

“Apparently he froze it off,” Sara said. “To get out of the handcuffs Kronos had him in.”

“The injury is concurrent with his cold gun, Captain.”

“Yes, I froze it off,” Len confirmed for them, “To get to Kronos before he killed any of you, or you killed him.” He could feel his temperature dropping, and he just wanted to sleep. Damnit. This was definitely shock. “Gideon, how do you treat shock?”

“I suggest making Mr. Snart as warm as possible and bringing him to med bay at once.”

“Jefferson! Dr. Stein. We need you to carry Mr. Snart to med bay at once.”

“I can walk,” he tried to say, but the words weren’t coming out right. He heard voices, presumably Gray and Jax, but couldn’t make out whose voice was whose.

“What? What happened?”

“Why? Oh my God! Where did his hand go? Is Kronos loose?” 

Kronos… Mick… with his heat gun. Damnit, his heat gun would be useful right about then. “Heat gun…” he tried to say.

“No, apparently he shot it off to save us from Kronos at Nanda Parbat.” That tone of annoyance could only be Rip.

“Let me. I have experience with shock.” 

Something was placed over him, a blanket probably. He aimed to curl it to him, but something was missing. Oh right, his hand. He looked up at Sara. “I was trying to save my partner…” he managed to whisper. “Don’t kill him. He’s Kronos, but don’t kill him”

“Shh,” Sara said, picking him up by his arm. He made a negative sound, really just wanting to go to sleep. A kid who looked like one of his younger cousins on his mom’s side, same age and everything, which was probably why he felt so protective of him, for all his mom’s family wanted nothing to do with him or Lisa - Jax, this guy’s name was Jax – was grasping his other shoulder, while both he and Sara kept the blanket wrapped around him. “He was in a fire,” he tried to explain. Sara looked over at him sharply. “I know, but he didn’t mean to start it.”

She turned to him. “Leonard, do you know where you are?”

“Let’s get him to med bay now!” Rip said. 

They carried him to med bay and put another blanket over him. “Gideon, I need an IV filled with normal saline bolus and a heating device for his forearm,” Stein said. He felt himself being pricked with the IV and a warm sensation started from the chair to wrap around him. 

Voices again began to match with the person who was speaking. He began to feel less confused as to when he was as well. Waverider: Captain Rip’s time ship. Currently on a mission to destroy Savage. He was from 2016. He was 43. Lisa was 33. He took a deep breath and counted his heart beats, before taking another, holding it to the count of four, letting it out for the count of six. His heart stopped feeling like it was pumping overtime. A heart monitor reported moments later that his heart rate and blood pressure had returned to normal. “How are we doing, Mr. Snart?” Stein smiled down at him.

“I think I’ll live, Doc,” Len joked back.

“In another half an hour, Mr. Snart should be back to normal for your body,” Gideon informed them.

“Except my hand,” Len pointed out.

“Gideon can regrow it.” Rip said. “Now I’d like everybody out. It can be a little disorienting.”

Stein waved him off then indicated his hand. “Why didn’t you tell us?” Stein said.

“Didn’t want to be a burden. Figured I could treat it myself.”

Rip sounded annoyed. No pleasing some people. “Yes, well, the sooner we know about these things, the sooner Gideon can fix them. Now, everybody out. Yes, including you, Professor.”

The others filed out of the room. He put his hand under a little device and Gideon worked her magic. 

“You should stay in the med bay for a few more hours.”

“If it’s all the same to you, I’d prefer to be in my room.”

“I can monitor him there, Captain,” Gideon chirped.

“See, Gideon agrees with me. No reason for me to be here anymore.” Len stood, glared at Rip and took the blanket for good measure. “Now, Gideon, how long before I can get trashed on booze?”

Rip gestured at him. “You’re getting drunk? Is that what I’m hearing?”

“The team’s back together, all except Mick, who been turned into Kronos. You’re gonna try to get him back. Good luck with that. I don’t want to watch it.”

“You should wait at least two hours before having any alcohol,” Gideon informed him.

“Two hours. Great, I’ll stop by the kitchen then.” He turned to Rip. “Let me know when – if – you have any success getting my partner back. Oh, and sorry I didn’t kill him. Didn’t have the heart to.”

 

Back in his room, he kicked Mick’s box of stuff to the floor, the box that was the only sign of where he actually slept, while for appearances they had, as always when they were getting to know a new crew, maintained separate rooms. The box fell sideways and Mick’s firetruck boxer pants fell out. Len had gotten them for him as a gag gift, but then they had actually been soft, so he’d taken to wearing them to sleep in. When had he gotten them, the twentieth anniversary of their working together? He gave a long shaky breath out and sunk to the floor.


	3. Chapter 3

Per Dagaton was a thing that happened to the Waverider. Len could not bring himself to care. Fourteen was how old he had been when he had been put in juvie, met Mick, determined he would protect Lisa if it was the last thing he did, and basically sealed his fate. Still a child, but if he was determined to learn mass murder from Savage, there was very little they could do to stop him. And they had already determined that they were stopping Savage’s rise to power by any means necessary: Per Dagaton wasn’t living long, even if they had to go forward another four years to kill eighteen-year-old Per Dagaton if everyone else was squeamish.

The rest of the team looked askance when he said it though. So he headed back to his room, shoved Mick’s box of things under a blanket, and grabbed a picture from his drawer of himself and Lisa, taking by Mick – who was surprisingly decent with a camera and knowing good lighting, probably a talent picked up from watching fire so long – and sat down on the floor to look at the picture.

It felt like such a long time ago, even though he knew it was taken in the fall of 2015. Although, when they were now, it was actually a long time, it was only a few months of time that had passed. They had been happy – he, Mick and Lisa. He sighed, looking down at the picture. Maybe that was what made it feel like so long ago.

There was a knock on the door. He pulled open the drawer and shoved the picture back in, but remained sitting against his bed. “Who is it?” 

“What’s up?” Sara’s voice said.

“Open,” he told the door. She came in. “Yeah?” he greeted her.

“You’re in a mood.”

“The sooner we get this over with and the sooner we get back to 2016, the better.”

“You told me once you didn’t kill kids. And you talked me out of killing Stein back in the Russian gulag.”

“Killing seemed to bother you, particularly of a team member. You can’t say the future Pot Pol doesn’t richly deserve it.”

She gave a sideways nod.

He sighed. “If we’re going to eventually kill the kid anyway, which Rip has given every indication that we are, I just want to be upfront with it and to know where everyone stands.”

She looked down at him. “You don’t think he can change?”

Len froze, feeling a cold sensation starting in his gut: one point for Sara on that jab. He grimaced at her and then pushed it aside to deal with the surface question. “I don’t think he’s going to.”

She sat down on his bed. “Do you think Mick…?”

“We were not talking about Mick. We were talking about Per Dagaton. Besides Mick is not Mick anymore; he’s Kronos. End of story.” He frowned in a way that he thought made him look like a child pouting. Couldn’t help it though. He added a little noise wrinkle to the pout: if he was going to pout, might as well go for it full throttle.

“Does your near brush with death have anything to do with your opinions now?” Sara asked.

That broke the pout. “It wasn’t a near brush with death. It was just shock and light shock at that. Look, I even have my hand back.” He wiggled his fingers.

“I think you should go talk to him.”

“I don’t. I don’t want to see whatever the fuck has replaced my partner. And I don’t want to see whatever Rip intends to do to him to get him back.”

Sara got up. “Then I will.”

He turned to her. “Have fun with that.” She left. He stared at the box in the corner, the cold feeling in his gut coming back, then leaned his head back on his bed so he didn’t have any chance of seeing it, tucked his legs up close to him, wrapping his arms around his knees as if that would make the feeling, and the situation in general, go away. 

\--

Sara opened the door to the room around Mick’s cell.

When she walked in, he greeted her with, “Ah, finally, someone who's willing to do a man's job,” 

She raised an eyebrow. “Not why I'm here.”

His face sank. “It's almost funny how you guys keep parading in here like it's some kind of confessional or something.”

She wondered who had already been there. Not Len obviously, unless he found a way in that was undetectable by Gideon, or unless he bribed Gideon (though that got into questions of how one would even bribe an AI, but she had no doubt that if anyone had managed, it would have been Len), and wasn’t telling anyone. “Who’s been here?”

He leaned his head back. “Why do you want to know?”

She shrugged. “No reason.”

“Let’s just say Rip is willfully stupid, and Jax is a sweetheart who should be apologizing to… somebody who actually cares. Kendra and Ray have issues that put mine and Snart’s to shame.” He scoffed and rolled his eyes over to her. “So what are you here to confess? Do you have feelings for Snart? Which I encourage: no reason you shouldn’t get laid. Or are you worried the bloodlust won’t go away? That the Lazarus Pit stole your humanity and won’t give it back? Because if so, just say so.”

“Also not why I'm here.”

“Okay, I'll bite.” He gave a grin at that that sent shivers up her spine. Fortunately, she was Sara Lance, White Canary, and responded to fear by talking back to it.

“Everybody's out there arguing about whether or not we should kill this kid, 'cause no one thinks he can change, which made me think of you. You know no one thinks you can change. That's why you're in here.” 

“I’m in here because you all think you can change me.” He leaned over to her. “Let me let you in on a secret.” He closed his eyes and reopened them, taking a deep inhale, then gazed into her eyes. What she saw there was something hungry and destructive: not unakin to what she imagined had been behind her eyes when she had come back from the Lazarus Pit. “You can’t.” 

“The Time Masters have a Lazarus Pit?” she concluded.

“No, they have something else. But they studied the Lazarus Pit. Nanda Parbat was Rip’s area of study and he wasn’t that only one.”

She stared at him. “They put you through it? Whatever it is?”

He pulled whatever it was that had stared through his eyes back. If it was akin to her revenge lust, that ability to turn it on and off was terrifying. “How do you think the Time Masters make their bounty hunters?”

“I don’t know.”

He nodded. “Good. Leave it that way.”

Change of topics then. “How about Len then?”

He stiffened and for a split second she thought she saw terror on his face, but it was only for a second and she couldn’t be sure. “What about him?”

“He saved your life.” 

He laughed. “He wussed out on killing me, not the same thing. Then he left me for dead.” 

“It's not like you left him many choices. You know, while you were busy selling us out to a homicidal time pirate, Len and I almost died.” She could recognize the signs of a person sitting bolt upright but trying not to show it. Then he seemed to remember something and relaxed back in his chair again, or sat at military rest was perhaps more accurate.

She continued, “He was thinking about you, told me about your partnership, your friendship.”

He laughed. “Did he now? What did he say?” 

“He told me about when you met and saved him from getting shivved in juvie.”

“Bastards wanted to shut him up for good,” he informed, “And I didn’t like ‘em at the best of times. Figured the kid would owe me.”

“He’s still your friend.”

He scoffed and turned to her. “Well, thank you for that. Tell me, has he discussed with you what he plans to do with me afterwards or about our stuff or our living quarters aboard this rust heap?”

She shook her head. “No. When you say living quarters…?”

“That’s what I thought. The two of us were sharing living quarters. Comes from years of splitting a safehouse. And his has the better ventilation shafts. But I imagine if I get out of here, he’s going to want that to change.”

She nodded. “I could ask him.”

He sat back. “Don’t bother. But if you could, tell him something for me?”

“What?”

He inclined his head. “Killing a kid, not very hero-like.”

Sara narrowed her eyes and left the room before realizing she had learned almost nothing of why Len was acting on edge in that particular way. 

\--

Len found himself feeling lightheaded and chilly with the type of cold that ate into one’s bones when he left the room later. “Gideon?”

“Yes, Mr. Snart?”

“Am I still being affected by the aftereffects of shock?”

“If you come down to med lab, I can run a full check-up.”

“Anyone else there?”

“Per Dagaton.”

He frowned, again feeling the distance from things. However, it wasn’t as though this had happen long ago in actual time and experience and a few months in time passed: it had happened only a few hours ago. “I’d better come by.”

He swung in, saw the little future head of Kasnia under sedative and unconscious, but no one else. He grabbed a needle, put it under the sterilizer, found his vein and a cotton swab and stuck himself with it. His body responded in a way that made alarm bells go off in his head: a pulling sensation on everything and the tendon in his neck tightened. He took a few deep breaths, found his heartrate was elevated, and took a few more. The sensation passed. 

He looked down at the needle again to make sure this wasn’t a newly developed phobia of needles or anything. He had had the healthy fear of needles that any kid growing up during the AIDS crisis and being associated with the Central City criminal underbelly had – though it was more than just that: a vision strong enough to make him feel like he was back there instead of here washed over him, and he was once more watching as a sex worker by the name of Jeannette, who had taken drugs by way of injection and who had lived up the hall from him for a year and a half, and a gay man who had frequented the same gay bar he had (which had been owned by a mob guy, as everything had in that part of Central in those days) and whose boyfriend had used, died. And he had gone to their funerals, and had dragged Mick along. 

And he was back in the present, on the Waverider, forty three years old, from 2016, not from the early-90s. 

He glanced back at the needle. There was no more sudden effect and no more sudden feeling of being in a memory. He pushed a tube in and let it fill. The strange dizziness came back, along with the pulling sensation. He leaned against the table and popped out the tube, pushing it into the testing machine that opened in the center of the table. The table sealed shut again. The dizziness passed.

“Shall I run all the usual tests, Mr. Snart?”

“Yes. And give me a readout of what you checked for when you’re done.”

He left the room and headed to the bridge to see what the others were planning on doing with the unconscious kid.

\--

They were still arguing about it and, from the sounds of it, would keep arguing about it for at least the next three hours.

He went over to the storage room to wait until Gideon was done with the analysis, with a stop by the replicator on the way over to grab a PT ball. He could kill three birds with one stone with it: avoid the Per Dagaton debate, see about any weakness in his rebuilt hands, and avoid Kronos while thinking over what it was he had given him. His mind kept going back to an STD or other blood borne thing, possibly technology, little nanobots, potentially connected to the Time Masters’ will or devices. If it was, Gideon would be able to find it and notify the captain and get it out of him, probably in some cool way that would be even cooler if it wasn’t going on in him. 

He could feel the temperature dropping again. “Gideon?” he asked.

“Yes, Mr. Snart?”

“Is it getting colder in here or is it just me?” 

“The temperature has remained consistent. The temperature of your extremities, however, has decrease by two degrees.”

That was concerning. He’d had fevers before, temporary feelings of sickness that made the air feel cold enough that he demanded every blanket in the safehouse – and he been fairly sure Mick had brought him more than they’d actually had and had made him a mean bowl of chicken noodle soup – but fevers typically made one’s temperature increase. “How’s that checkup? Have you found anything yet?” 

“I have not yet.”

“Keep checking, will you? Check for things Kronos might have given me.”

“Yes, Mr. Snart.” 

He tossed the ball across the room again. 

Sara walked in. “Have you seen the captain?”

Len tilted his head. “I thought he was with you on the bridge, figuring out what should be done about the future Stalin.” 

“The kid’s gone too,” she confessed.

Len caught the ball. “What are the chances he got sick of this debate and just took the kid off to kill him?”

Sara gave him a disapproving look. He gave her an inquiring one. She sighed. “Unfortunately, it’s not off the books for where he and Per Dagaton went.”

Len got to his feet and felt the wave of dizziness again, accompanied by momentary disorientation where it seemed to him that he should go ask Lisa if she could track him down: she was typically very adept at tracking people through Central City’s underworld. He rested his hand against the box and his other hand against his chest, and found his heart rate weak again. He sighed and stood up straight, letting the feeling subside, which it was continuing to do. 

“Let’s go see if Gideon knows where he went,” Len said. 

\--

Gideon was put on the second search. Len went back to med lab to check if the search had revealed anything and to ask if either search would slow the other down.

“My memory banks can run up to five searches at a time without any delay to the other searches,” Gideon answered.

“Good to know,” Len stored that information away for future use. The lightheadedness and heartrate spiked again. He leaned back on the table. “How goes the search for what the hell is wrong with me?”

“You seem to have mild symptoms of shock. However, your body should have gotten over it with the solution Professor Stein gave you and the new hand.”

“Could I get more of that solution? Would that help?”

“Temporarily, yes.” Gideon opened a panel and gave him instructions on how to use the stuff. He sat down to let it work. 

“Gideon, did Kronos give me anything in his blood? Potentially related to becoming a bounty hunter?” Len asked.

“As far as I can tell, no.” Gideon sounded apologetic.

Len stared, taking in what the AI had said. “As far as you can tell?”

“My records for how bounty hunters are made are incomplete-.”

“Rip’s doing?” he interrupted.

“No. Time ships are not given that information. Even the time ship Kronos flew would not have had complete information in that regard. However, I do not believe that what he had in his blood could have become active without a drawn out process.”

He was starting to feel less dizzy. “The drawn out process involving what?”

“Torture, typically resulting in death and being brought back as a bounty hunter.”

The dizzy spike he felt now had nothing to do with how he was feeling earlier and everything to do with alarm. “So when he said being reborn, he meant it? He was killed?”

“Yes, Mr. Snart.”

“Fuck.”

“Yes, Mr. Snart. What I do know of the process is not pleasant.”

“Lazarus Pit or something like it?” he asked.

“That is beyond the information I have in my memory banks.”

Len nodded and leaned forward to put his head in his hands. “So he died even with my trying to save his life.”

“May I remind you, he is still alive in the holding cell?”

“He was tortured to death, probably with no knowledge that he would be coming back, if my guess is right.”

Gideon’s voice was gentle. “Yes, Mr. Snart.”

“So he’s right to blame me,” Len concluded, smacked his hand into the table and felt the IV pull.

“You thought you were saving his life,” Gideon pointed out.

Len scoffed. “Nonetheless, I think I want to be alone. How much longer should I leave this thing in for?” He gestured at the IV.

“You can take it out now.”

Len did. “Keep running those tests, Gideon. Let me know everything you find. Also, search for potential tumors, HIV, things like that. Anything that could be causing shock.” 

\--

Len found his way back to the storage room, pulled out the ball and winged it again the wall and curled up against the opposite wall. He had killed Mick because he couldn’t think of a better way to get him off the ship. Sure, he’d left him alive, but not having full information on a plan usually led to bad planning, and he knew that, and left him there anyway. No wonder Kronos now hated him so much. And was still willing to spend eternity with him. Sometimes, he both didn’t understand his partner at all and understood him too well.

He tossed the ball again and caught it as it came rolling back. He should go talk to him. He knew he should. He should go talk to him and apologize. Yet. If he was Kronos, he would not be willing to forgive him and an apology would only seem to be too little, too late, spat in the face of dying. 

Sara walked in then and stared at him. 

He caught the ball and looked up at her. “No luck finding our homicidal captain?” 

“Gideon's still searching, but I have a feeling Rip's not gonna be found if he doesn't want to be.” 

“If he kills the kid, so what? Didn’t know he had it in him, but you can’t say you weren’t considering the same thing.” 

Sara scoffed at him. “So what if I was? At least he owed us an explanation.”

Len shrugged. 

“So what are you doing down here?”

“Avoiding a certain room.” Len gave a smile that was more grimace than smile. 

“Don't you think you at least owe him a conversation?” Sara said. 

He hunched his shoulders. “We had our conversation while he was Kronos. He has no reason to forgive me and all the apologies in the world won’t do any good in getting him not to have every reason to hate me.”

“You saved his life.”

“No, I didn’t. In case you weren’t aware, he was tortured into being Kronos. The Mick I knew died. He was my responsibility – I dragged him onto this joyride, and he trusted me – and I let that happen.”

The expression Sara gave him was judgmental and sad and – God, he hated pity. “Go talk to him.”

“About what?”

“I don’t know. Maybe about your feelings about him and his feelings about you?” 

He pulled himself up and all but crossed his arms. “I don't have any feelings about Mick.” 

She did that little expression where her eyes scoffed at someone. “Look, it didn't seem that way when we were dying in the engine room of hypothermia.” 

“Look, he's still the same son of a bitch he was when you all wanted me to put him down,” he all but spat at her. “And if you-.”

She interrupted him, “I thought you said the Mick you knew had died.”

He couldn’t help but smile back at her for that one. “Point. But not what I meant by that statement.”

“I know.” She nodded. “He said they had something like the Lazarus Pit.”

He frowned at her. “He told you that?”

She nodded. “He also asked if you had any thoughts as to what should happen after the mission is over, and what should happen with your stuff and with your living quarters.”

He raised an eyebrow. “What do you think we should do?”

“I think you should go talk to him,” she said.

He sighed. “I’ll think about it.”

“Less thinking, more getting your butt down there and actually talking about it,” she said and walked out of the room. 

He rolled over to grab the ball again and toss it again the wall again, but when she had a point, she had a point.

Damnit. 

\--

He walked into the holding cell where they had Kronos behind glass walls. Len felt like he was seeing a scientist’s lab from one of those dystopias with high technology and the same rules as the Victorian era, particularly regarding pyromania and other mental illnesses (and for a moment he felt himself un-anchor again and was seeing Mick showing him the way they used to treat pyromania or more accurately not treat it at all). 

He shook his head. Mick was in front of him, or Kronos was - deliberately looking anywhere else, the bastard.

“People seem to think we should have a heart-to-heart,” he said to get Kronos’ attention. 

That got a scoff. Kronos’ eyes turned toward him. “We don't have hearts.” 

Len froze at that. Did he mean it? Was there a way that the Time Masters could get a person to function without a heart? “How?”

Kronos turned to face him. “It was metaphorical. I still have a heart. It’s still beating.”

Len licked his lips. “What was it that you gave me back there?”

Kronos gave him a stare and then that scoff again. “Leave it. It won’t affect you at all.”

Len pursed his lips. Back to square one on what was going on with him then. “Good to know. So where does that leave us?”

Kronos said, “Why don’t you tell me? You’re the one with the plan. And the one who’s got me locked up like some kind of circus freak.”

Len nodded. “Here's my proposal. I open this cell. We let our fists do the talking.”

Kronos drew in a sharp breath – tried to hide it, but he had been Len’s partner too long for Len not to recognize it for what it was. “No.”

Len turned to survey him. “Why?”

Kronos shook his head, the tension in his back looking like his life might have depended on him not fighting Len. “When I kill you...” 

Len interrupted, pressing his lips together. “You take the jump ship, make your escape, live out the rest of your life anywhere you like.” A flash of something crossed Kronos’ face, but was too fast for Len to see what it was.

Kronos said, “Hmm. I could have stayed a bounty hunter with that kind of deal, Snart. I win, you come with me. And if you win?” 

“We complete the job. Then we decide.”

Kronos nodded and stood. “It’s a deal.”

Len put his hand on the door to the cell. It slid open. 

Len threw the first punch then let Kronos wail on him. Punching things had always made the old Mick calm down when he couldn’t get near fire or a lighter. 

Then, he stopped. Len noted that nothing was broken, even with Kronos wailing on him in what seemed like complete abandon. “Mick?” he asked. 

“Listen, Snart, if this is just a job, you’re going to want to have all the information.” His voice had changed in tone: there was emotion there – most of it derision, but at least it was there, and closeness – this was the Mick he could refer to jobs and feelings in a word and have him understand; this was back to the old Mick, at least a little.

“Go on,” Len prompted, checking to make sure nothing was sprained, broken or dislocated – Kronos might have held back from breaking anything, but not from wailing on him. On second thought, his ankle might be dislocated, and his face was already feeling puffy.

“The Time Masters are going to send their bounty hunters after us, the entire team, including me.”

“We’d better tell the others. Help me up.” Len started to push himself up on his arms and tried to move his ankle to a flat position on the floor. 

“Hey, Snart. Can’t you allow yourself five minutes before running off like an injured idiot?” Mick’s arms were on him, a hand behind his back, helping him up to a sitting position.

Len reached up to touch his face. “And who injured me, Mick?”

“Nothing that shouldn’t heal within the week,” Mick said.

Len stared at him. “You stopped yourself. Why?”

Mick froze again, then kept moving – Len realized, checking him over to make sure he hadn’t broken anything – which was not his usual behavior post-punching-things. “Having you dead wouldn’t be very interesting.” 

When Mick got to his back, Len stopped him. “The only place that feels more than bruised is my ankle.”

Mick turned to his ankle and set his hands on it. Len tensed in anticipation – the feeling of getting something relocated didn’t hurt per se, but it felt bizarre enough that pain would probably have been better. Mick pulled the bones out and popped them back into place the right way. 

Len held up a hand when Mick tried to search for other worse than bruised area. “What is this, Mick?” 

Mick sat back, surveying him. “We’ll talk after this job.” 

Len nodded. “Deal.”

“And we’d better make a plan of what to do if the captain of this rust bucket screws up. Because you know he will.”

Len inclined his head in agreement. “That, we should tell the others minus Rip. Now help me up.”

Mick reached out a hand to help Len up. Len felt his heart rate spike again as he and Mick walked on to the bridge, but at least one thing (two things if one counted Per Dagaton, another job appropriately screwed up by their captain) was back to the way it should be. 

There was reaching for weapons. There was a cold gun whirring in Len’s hand faster than any of them could draw. There was an explanation that Mick was once again Mick and was willing to be on their side and an explanation of what the Time Masters had planned for going after the Waverider. Though, Len noted, Mick turned an icy gaze on Rip, which made the captain take a step back: what had been Kronos was still there. He put a hand on his wrist to take his pulse, certain that whatever it was that was making him dizzy and his heart rate spike was still there too and wondering when he could get away to go check if Gideon had found out what it was.


	4. Chapter 4

“I’m sorry, Mr. Snart. I still haven’t found anything that is causing the symptoms you are experiencing,” Gideon said the next time he checked, which had to wait until after they had slept. Mick had insisted on sleeping in the room that was technically his rather than in with Len, muttering something about hunter instincts still being strong and not wanting to kill Len. Len had tried to give him his stuff, but Mick had told him to hang onto it, so not forever, but just for the time being.

Len took a deep breath, feeling the dizziness spiking less than five minutes from last time. “Did you check for tumors, HIV, terminal illnesses? Possibly liver damage? Kidney failure?” Len asked. 

“I can do a full body scan,” Gideon suggested.

“Fine. Where do you want me?”

“The med lab chair on the right.” 

He nodded and went to go sit. “Make it quick. I hate hospitals. They tend to end up in getting arrested.”

The light scanned him over a few times. “And that’s checking to see if there’s anything wrong with me?” he asked.

“Yes, Mr. Snart. Thus far, I am not finding anything that could cause your body to go into shock.”

“Well, keep looking, Gideon. I want this found by the end of the day.” 

“I can show you what I am seeing.”

“Yes, do that.”

Gideon kept the scanner on for another fifteen minutes with a holographic presentation of what was being scanned. Len stopped whenever he didn’t understand something, and Gideon explained it to him in detail to both their satisfaction that there was nothing showing up that was wrong with him. 

Stein stuck his head into the med lab and stopped on seeing Len there. “Ah, I didn’t know you were here, Leonard. Is everything okay?” He tried to get a view of the scanner. 

“Minimize and password lock the scan,” Len informed Gideon. The scan disappeared. Stein looked disappointed, which made Len grateful he had put his medical records under password lock in the first place.

“Everything’s fine. Just some residual effects from having frozen my hand off.” He waved the hand in question at Stein.

“Ah, do you need my assistance with any of the effects or any of the tests?”

While the invitation was welcome, Len was not about to trust Stein with the information that he might have a terminal illness and not know about it. He had already checked whether whatever it was could be contagious, and had gotten a response of definitely not. So while Stein could be helpful, if Gideon wasn’t finding anything, Stein probably wouldn’t be able to either, so the only effects of telling him would be that the rest of the ship find out, Rip do whatever Rip would do, and pity. “Gideon’s already doing them, but I’ll let you know.”

He pushed himself up, gave Stein a nod, and found his way to the kitchen to get breakfast. 

He came across Mick and Rip alone in the room. Mick looked antsy, like he needed to set something on fire, which on one hand sucked because it meant his pyromania was back and he was trying to control it, but on the other – and Len felt guilty about thinking it but also honest enough to admit it to his selfish self – it meant that his Mick was coming back. “I either need off this ship for an hour or need to know if Gideon can synthesize…?” He left off as they both saw Len. Len stopped and wondered what the rest of that sentence was going to be: was there a medicine that worked better than the ones he had been taking for his pyromania or was this conversation not about that at all? In which case, what were they talking about?

“I can step out if I’m interrupting something,” Len told them. 

“No, I was just asking if I could get off this ship for a little. Something I need.”

“I know what you need,” Len responded. Mick tipped his head back a little in response. Len turned to Rip. “Can I take him to start a fire?”

Mick smiled at him. “It’s not actually that, but starting a fire would be nice.”

Len turned to smile back at him. “Maybe a nice bonfire or a beach. We can get Gideon to make marshmallows.” 

“Sounds good, Snart. We can bring booze too, and make it a picnic.”

Len nodded. “Good. Let’s go ask Gideon to find us a beach.”

Rip got in between them. “Hi. Yes. I believe you were asking for my permission because I am still your captain and we are in the middle of a-.”

Len raised an eyebrow at him and interrupted him, “Don’t care. Give everyone a night off. Given the levels of stress everyone has been under, I think we all could use a break.”

\--

Beach. Sunset. Someone had brought a cooler. Len had gotten marshmallows and was lounging back, watching Mick build a log tent with intricate care. It was already six feet tall and Mick was taking care where he places the individual elements now that the structure was done. It was like that alumni day at the Central City Community College that Mick had signed up to do when Lisa was still attending, where the weekend was kicked off by a giant bonfire, and Mick had made sure that the bonfire was a work of art, weaving through various parts of the structure, as he had explained to Len. Even other students had come by and told Mick it was awesome. Len smiled at the memory and at the fact that he was doing the same thing now. That thing, when it was lit, was going to go up in some of the most beautiful flames. Len sat back on the picnic blanket, uncapped a bottle of beer, and watched as Mick moved a stick a little to the left and another a little to the right, before putting a mound of kindling at the bottom of each of the sticks. 

Sara came and stood next to him. He smiled up at her and tapped the blanket next to him. “You and he good?” she asked, taking a seat and uncapped her own beer. 

Len shrugged, drawn back to the present. “We’re getting there.” 

Sara nodded. “He mentioned sharing a room because the way you used to share a warehouse.” 

Len shook his head. “Yeah. He’s still staying in his room.” He sighed, remembering his concern with his condition, whatever that condition was. “Probably for the best.”

Sara turned to study him. “You want to share anything?”

Len inclined his head and turned the study back on her. “Tell me about the Lazarus Pit. What was it like?”

“You want to know because of what Mick went through?”

Len nodded.

“I think it would be better if he told you about what he went through than trying to understand it through me.”

“Any heart rate effects, feelings of dizziness?”

Sara frowned and gave her head a little shake. “Why? Has Mick complained to you about these being effects?”

“Are they?” 

“No. Not that I experienced at any rate.”

Len sighed, looking away.

“Why don’t you have him check with Gideon? Surely she’d know something.”

Len shook his head. “Gideon doesn’t have full information on what was done to the bounty hunters. I doubt she’d know what is going on.”

“Do you want me to ask Rip?” Sara nodded at Rip.

Len thought about it. On one hand, Rip might know what was going on with him. On the other, if he did know, that meant he knew while he was a Time Master in good standing, and Len might have to kill him for what had happened to Mick. “Maybe. Give it a few more days and I’ll let you know.” 

Brightness flared at the corner of his vision, which meant fire. He turned to see Mick lighting various part of it with his heat gun, but only the parts he had put the kindling. It caught and caught the rest of the wood on fire and Mick backed up to see if it was catching properly. He made a expression like this satisfied old bodega cat that had finally figured out how to get to the duck in the window next door to where the bodega was – Len translated that as Mick knowing he had placed the sticks and branches correctly, and watched as the structure burned first the main non-structural branches, and then moved onto the sticks and other filling he had put in it, until the whole thing burned. In the time it took for the entire thing to go up, the sun dipped below the horizon, red, gold, pink and purple against the clouds. He watched as Mick stood there watching the fire and the sunset.

Sara nodded at Mick. “Go talk to him.” 

He sighed, putting his legs under him – he had gotten another injection of whatever Stein had given him when he had shock but his legs were still shaky – and walking over to Mick. “It’s beautiful, Mick.” 

Mick turned to him. “Yeah. It always is.”

Len sighed. “You wanna come sit on the blanket and watch the fire from there?”

Mick let himself be led over to the blanket. Sara was getting another beer, and when she turned to come back and saw them, started walking over to where Jax was standing. Len sat, and Mick sat next to him. “About what you gave me.”

Mick tensed. “I already told you: it won’t affect you.”

Len scoffed. “It affected you, which means it’s affecting me and has to be taken into my calculations. And besides, how do you know it won’t affect me?” 

Mick turned to Len. “Listen, Lenny. It will be completely out of your system within a couple more days. You don’t die before then, you’re good.”

Len studied him. “What are the effects on you, Mick?”

“I’m harder to kill.” Then, Mick shook his head.

Len studied him. “There’s something you’re not telling me, Mick. I don’t like not having all the information.”

Mick closed his eyes. “I told you: I can take care of it myself.”

Len put his hand on Mick’s, and found that his hands, which had once ran hot, were not anymore. They weren’t cold, but they were closer to air temperature than they had been before. Mick looked up in surprise and met Len’s eyes. “Tell me.”

Mick shivered and took a few deep breaths. 

Len stared at the similarity between what he hoped was the only outside sign of his unusual condition and Mick’s heavy, shallow breathing. “Mick, what are you experiencing right now? Tell me.”

Mick picked up Len’s hand, squeezed it and raised it to kiss the back of it. Len found his cheeks heating up and hoped he wasn’t blushing like a college freshman on his first time. “You haven’t done that since we made our partnership official,” Len half-accused.

“Got married is what it’s officially called.”

“Married sounds so…” Len wrinkled his nose. Mick laughed, laying a hand on Len’s shoulder. Len smiled at him. “I hate to interrupt the moment, but the subject at hand. Tell me.” 

“I’ll tell you about it when the job is done. Then we’ll talk. Provided you don’t mind, Lenny,” Mick said.

“About our partnership or what you gave to me or what’s clearly still affecting you?” Len asked.

“Either.” Mick nodded at the others. “Now, why don’t you go get the marshmallows and hot dogs? I’ll go find proper roasting sticks.”

Mick got up and headed off for the woods where he had dragged the branches from, leaving Len on the blanket, feeling his own heart rate still in the same buzz it had been in since Mick had sat down, his skin at a colder temperature, and he took a few deep breaths to calm it down. 

 

Mick came back with a spring to his step, looking healthier, and a bundle of sticks that he handed out. Len nodded at him from where he was sitting on the blanket, and Mick popped a marshmallow onto his and stuck it over a coal and offered it to Len when it was done. Len took it, noting that Mick still knew how he liked it best, and ate it. Mick went back over and stuck another marshmallow onto the stick.

“We should have brought graham crackers,” Ray complained as he was eating the marshmallow he had made.

“Shut up and eat it, Haircut,” Mick replied. Ray grumbled, but sat down next to Kendra.

Len watched the fire start to die down. Mick had stabbed several hot dogs and had roasted a first round of them by the bonfire, and was roasting a second round. Jax had brought a football, probably something Gideon had made, and was throwing it back and forth with Sara.

The fire dying down, combined with the darkening sky, was cooling the beach down. Len could feel it in his fingers and edging down his shoulder. He stood, realized how dizzy he was feeling, and shook his head to try to shake it off, and made his way over to Mick. 

“Hey, Mick,” he greeted. 

Mick turned to him then studied his expression. “You okay?”

“Feeling a little cold, is all,” Len responded. 

Mick gave a snort. 

Len laughed. “No pun intended.”

Mick raised an eyebrow. “Course not, snow bunny.”

Len scoffed at the nickname. “Fire bug.”

“Ice king.”

“Phoenix.”

In a sudden motion, Mick cupped Len’s cheek, hand warm again, all the joking gone from his face and looking into his eyes. Len drew in a sharp breath, then gave a sigh and leaned into Mick’s touch. “We good?” he asked.

In answer, Mick leaned forward and kissed him. Len shuddered in anticipation and squeezed Mick’s hand. 

“Mick,” he smiled at him.

Mick gazed at him with hunger in his eyes and brought Len’s hand up to kiss his palm. Len closed his eyes and stepped closer to Mick. Mick reached out and took Len’s arms in his strong hands. Len rested his head on Mick’s shoulder putting himself close enough that Mick was able to drape an arm around Len’s back and hold him even closer. Len sighed, wiggling his hands into Mick’s pockets, and they stood there like that, neither moving as the fire died down. 

“The sooner we get the hell on this ship, the better, for both of us,” Len whispered after some time had passed.

Mick murmured agreement. “Agreed. Do you want to go back to 2016?”

“I thought you said you did.”

“Before. I… don’t feel particularly bound to any time period anymore. And I still have my time ship, technically. We can dig her up and cruise the timeline, making a few of the great mysteries as to where jewels or paintings went. The Hope Diamond?”

“Ain’t it cursed?” Len said.

“Old artifacts from burned buildings? You know what museums would pay for things that just disappeared due to fire that someone was able to find out made it out of the blaze?” 

“Heh. The original footage from Metropolis. Or the first season of Dr. Who.”

Mick laughed and brushed his hand down from Len’s cheek to his shoulder. “Dork.”

Len brought his face up to raise an eyebrow at Mick. “Pot, kettle, Mr. I-gotta-track-down-the-Signed-Original-Series-of-Star-Trek.”

“Hey, that’s a collector’s piece!” Mick protested, but nodded to show he was conceding the point. 

“Alright. So there might be a bit of time travel in our future. But first I wanna see Lisa.”

“She can come too.”

“Good.” He leaned his head back down on Mick’s shoulder, burying his forehead in Mick’s neck, feeling warmer than he had in a while. He took his head off Mick’s shoulder and his hands out of his pockets and looked at him. “Mick, there’s something I-.”

“Uhh,” someone said. “I’m sorry if I am interrupting…”

They both turned to face Stein. Mick looked like he was going to kill him. Stein took a step back. “I… umm…” He looked at both of them. “I wanted to say that it’s getting late and we should get back to the ship.”

Sara and Jax had come over, and Len became aware, from the gestures Jax was making and from how Sara had her hand over half her face, that both Jax and Sara had tried to head Stein off before he interrupted them. “Listen, Gray, why don’t the rest of us start packing up and let them have a minute?” Jax said, taking Stein by the arm.

Len took Mick by the arm. Stein nodded. “Yes, that would probably be best. At any rate, it’s good to see the two of you are back together.” And he nodded and Sara guided him to where Kendra and Ray were sitting and talking and Rip was looking worried at some device he was holding.

Len raised an eyebrow at Jax. “Yeah, Gray had no idea you two were an item.” 

“And you did?” Len asked.

“Nobody calls each other partner as much as you two do and says things like their partner is the most important thing in the world to them, without some form of love being involved.”

“We don’t do love, kid,” Mick said.

“Listen, I’m not going to out anyone against their-.”

Len shook his head. “We’re out, kid, least to the parts of Central that know us.”

“He hosts an afterschool club for LGBT middle and high school students at a local school who are dealing with family issues.”

Len glared at him. “You make it sound like I’m doing it of my own free will and didn’t get placed in the club as part of my community service duty one time I got arrested.”

“Yeah? The community service you finished serving ten years ago?” Mick returned. 

Len gestured at Mick with a you-see-what-I-have-to-put-up-with expression. “Basically, we just didn’t feel it should be one of the facts the crew of the Waverider gets to know about us before they know our birthdays, ages, siblings.”

Mick added, “And you know, just in case Rip is a major homophobe and maroons one of us for it again. The Time Masters don’t seem that versed on relationships of any type.” 

Jax looked over at Rip and gave a slow nod. “Well, I gotta say, it’s actually one of the reasons I was so weirded out when he supposedly killed you. Because killing one’s best friend is damn cold, puns aside, even for you.”

Len laughed. “Thanks for being concerned, kid.” 

Mick said, “Listen, kid. We’ll help pack up in just a sec.”

Jax nodded and walked over to help Stein and Sara pack up.

Mick turned to Len. “You were saying?”

Len thought about it and shook his head. “Not important now.”

Mick put a hand on Len’s cheek again. “You sure?” Len turned into it and kissed his thumb, lingering on it a little. He brought his hand up and intertwined it with Mick’s, then sucked on Mick’s thumb playfully with a promise of more later. 

However, when he turned to look at Mick’s face to see what Mick thought of his unspoken question, Mick had a dark expression on and was taking ragged breaths. A glance at his eyes said he was focusing on somewhere else. Len put their hands down and touched Mick’s shoulder. “Hey, what’s up?”

Mick snapped his eyes to him, and for a second, it seemed to Len that Mick’s pupils were slits. He shot his hand back. But then Mick blinked, and his eyes returned to normal.

Len still studied Mick’s face. “Mick, the thing like the Lazarus Pit they put you through…”

Mick met Len’s eyes. “I’m still feeling it. I’ll keep feeling it for the rest of forever.” He reached out and squeezed Len’s hand. “Let’s go help them clean up.” He nodded at the others. Len started in the direction of Sara, Jax and Stein. 

Another wave of dizziness struck him, almost making him stumble. Mick turned to him sharply when he did. “My ankle,” Len lied.

Mick nodded, looking guilty then frowning. “You know Gideon can fix that, right?”

“Yeah, but…” he shrugged. Mick stared at him and shook his head. 

When they got back on the Waverider, Len said, “Our room?”

Mick started in that direction. Len sought his hand. Mick started to offer it, then stopped. “Better not tonight.”

“Why?”

Mick shook his head. “Eventually,” he said and stalked off towards the room the ship had set up for him. Len watched and then shivered, feeling his temperature drop again. He walked back to his room and wrapped the blanket around him and asked Gideon to make it warmer.


	5. Chapter 5

“Why are we here?” Ray asked. For once, Len had to agree with their team Boy Scout: here meant the Wild West, 1871, and they were all dressed up as cowboys, and he was not in the mood for that level of ridiculousness that day.

“Because Captain Hunter thinks traveling to a time so far back will mean the bounty hunters will have difficulty finding us,” Stein said. Len turned to Mick to see if that had any truth in it, but Mick was standing on the far side of the line from him, glaring about something.

“Why are we here specifically?” Ray asked.

“Because it’s a place out of time where the time masters can’t see us immediately,” Mick answered. “The bounty hunters will have to use old fashioned tracking. Which they can, but it’ll take them longer because they don’t like it.” 

Everyone turned to Mick, most of them with expressions of surprise, which surprised Len. Sure, Ray and Stein, they believed that anyone who didn’t have a degree wasn’t intelligent, but Sara, Jax and Kendra really had no excuse. Len narrowed his eyes at Sara, but she was looking somewhere else. 

Mick looked around at the stares and shrugged. “What? I was one of them. I still know things they know.” 

Stein nodded. “Yes, you do, don’t you?”

Len tried to get closer to Mick, to ask again about his time as a bounty hunter and what effects being a bounty hunter had, but Ray gestured at the bar, and Mick followed him in and made a beeline to the bar. Stein called him over to a table to play cards. The next time he looked up, Mick was tossing back shots with Sara and looked like he was well on his way to being shitfaced. 

He could still have gone over to him, but noticed that they were getting sized up for something, something neither Stein, nor Ray seemed to notice at all and Jax only seemed to notice a little. Len checked the guys who were doing the sizing up out. Some of them were wearing gray jackets that looked a lot like things Civil War reenactors wore, Civil War confederate reenactors, and this was 1871. He took another look at Jax and unfastened his gun, letting the asshole nearest him in the confederate army uniform know that if there was going to be trouble, it would have to come through him first. The guy took a look at the gun, met Len’s eyes and stopped sizing up the team. 

Trouble came from a different angle: someone went to take a shot at Stein. Len drew faster, and the guy who had drawn fell over.

“You shot him!” Stein seemed dismayed.

Len gave him a look - he had just saved him from getting shot; there was absolutely no need to sound so dismayed – and said, “You’re welcome.”

And then, there was a bar fight. Because of course there was a bar fight. He wasn’t even surprised anymore.

As they walked out of the bar – and he looked to make sure Mick was following, and yes, there he was grabbing at the railing – someone confronted them as time travelers and asked to see their captain.

It turned out he was named Jonah Hex, and had a bit of a history with Rip. Len raised an eyebrow at their captain, and continued to Mick’s room to continue their earlier conversation, leaving those two to have their disagreement.

On the way there, he felt as though the world went sideways and caught himself on the wall. He lowered himself to the floor as a pressure began being applied to his ears and made him feel far away. 

“Snart, what the hell? You okay?” said a voice. 

He had been unware he was being followed and squinted at the speaker. Kid, black, Jax. He blinked again and Jax came into clearer focus. “I don’t feel so good, Jax.” 

Jax bit his lip and surveyed Len. Len shrugged, his eyes still not focusing without effort, and tried blinking a few times. Jax reached down for him. “I’m taking you to med lab.” 

“No.” Len shoved his hand away. 

Jax swore under his breath. “Snart, this isn’t the time for this!” 

Len reached for the outside of Jax’s hand. When he touched him, Jax looked down at his hand then gaped at him. “Your hands are…”

“Gideon already checked me over. She can’t find anything that could be causing this,” he explained.

“So this has been going on for a while?” 

That sounded a little too close to an accusation. Len narrowed his eyes. “It started when I went into shock, after freezing my hand off, but Gideon already checked me over for everything related to that.”

“Has Gideon checked you for things not related to that?” Jax asked.

“Already beat you to it, kid,” Len answered. “Complete check-up. Can’t find anything wrong.” 

“She can’t?” Jax bit his lip and frowned as the idea that Gideon didn’t know everything dawned on him. 

The dizziness was starting to pass and he was starting to be able to breathe again. The feverish feeling didn’t seem about to go away though. Before Jax could get too worried, Len said, “I’m feeling better. Help me up.”

“You sure? You just nearly passed out, man.”

“I’ll go check with Gideon again soon, if that makes you feel better.”

“It does.” Jax nodded and reached down to help him up. Len tried standing, and it might have been too soon. He sagged against the wall.

“That does it. If you won’t go to Gideon, I’m taking you to Rip.” Jax put his hand on Len’s shoulder.

“You do anything like that and we’ll see what’s stronger – my cold gun or your fire abilities – got it?” Len snapped at him.

Jax shook his head, turned away, made a strangling motion in Len’s direction and then turned back to him. “Man, I can’t just leave you here!” 

Len could feel his body getting weaker and his legs started trembling from the effort of standing. Jax was right: he couldn’t just leave him here or he would fall again. “How about you take me to Mick’s room?” 

“Why? Aren’t you concerned it might be contagious?”

Len raised an eyebrow. “Because I think Mick know what’s going on.”

\--

“Mick,” Len said from the door of his room and gestured to Jax that he was fine and that Jax was to be anywhere other than there.

Mick was still shaking his head like he typically did when he had drunk too much and was trying to shake it off. When he heard Len, he snapped his head up, sobering up with a speed that made Len stare. “Yeah?”

“We need to talk.”

“Look, if this is about last night…”

“Sort of. Can I sit?” It was either that or risk his legs not holding him up anymore. Mick looked up sharply and nodded. Len sat next to him on the bed, letting the wave of dizziness wash over him. This time, he felt his arms start to hurt. He leaned back, took a deep breath to calm it as much as he could. It calmed the immediate dizziness but the feverish feel and the feeling of weakness was getting worse. He rubbed his hands together and looked over at Mick.

Mick was watching him, eyes going everywhere. Len wondered what Mick was seeing and whether he recognized how Len was feeling. 

Len inclined his head, closing his eyes. “Listen, Mick. If we’re back as partners, I want you to know I have my stash of money at 6 Deloitt Street.” He reopened them and gazed back at Mick.

Mick gave a momentary grin, but returned his gaze to Len, definitely seeing something: his posture was tightening and his frown was increasing. “I have my stash over in the big old bulkhead next to 85 Lawrence.”

“I’m not telling you just because we’ve reached a new level of partnership. If anything should happen to me out here, I wanna know someone’s going to use it.” Len watched Mick’s face grow increasingly worried, then alarmed, and then a momentary grimace of guilt came over his features almost too fast to be recognizable. 

“Nothing’ll happen to you, Lenny. Not if I can help it,” Mick said. The protective alarm in his voice would have made Len concerned for everyone else’s wellbeing, except for that expression of guilt: it was related to whatever it was Mick had given him, and both he and Mick knew it.

“Mick, if anything should, I’d like to know it’s taken care of. You’ll make sure Lisa gets some?” His arms began tingling. He leaned his head back and tried for a few deep breaths. What was coming to his lungs wasn’t bringing a whole lot of air. “Unless, I don’t have to be concerned about my health.”

Mick looked up sharply, holding his eyes. Len broke eye contact. A spike of pain ran through him and he hissed at it. “I want you to describe the symptoms of what you gave me. If the worst should happen and it didn’t just pass out of my system.”

Mick took him by the shoulders and gazed at him. “Tell me what you’ve been experiencing, Lenny.”

Len looked back at Mick to see him sitting more upright than he had in a while and sighed. Now was the time to tell. “Despite several attempts to get Gideon to identify what is wrong with me, she still says there’s nothing wrong. Yet I’m increasingly in pain. My heart rate is going up and down. I’m short of breath. I’m constantly cold. My legs don’t want to hold me up anymore at random moments. And still Gideon can’t identify anything that would be causing it. And I just want to make sure you don’t know what could be causing it.” 

The room fell silent enough to hear a pin drop. He put a hand on Len’s shoulder. Len leaned into it. “Mick. What’s up?”

“When did this start?”

“When you…” Len shrugged, touching his lips.

Mick straightened up like somebody was holding a gun to his spine. “Stay here. I need to go check something,” Mick said and left the room. 

\--

The fact that Len was telling him meant that he had put a lot of thought and double-checking into it. If it was something Gideon could fix, Mick doubted anyone’d ever hear about it or notice it. There was an area Gideon could not fix, because no Time Ship knew the full extent of what it was.

But it should not be happening. Admittedly, he didn’t know very much about it, but sometimes other bounty hunters talked about how they had given their blood to someone just in case anything bad should happen, and then returned them no problem to their time. Reason being, it did not become active unless someone got killed or tortured to fatal injury.

He sure hoped Len had not gotten a fatal injury. 

Because that was part of the problem. 

Len didn’t nearly get killed when he was planning, not even on that job that went particularly bad. But he did get injured when someone less competent misused his talents. So if Len did, he knew exactly who was responsible.

He strode into Rip’s office to find the captain sitting there in a pout over Jonah Hex. Let him. All the bounty hunters knew about Jonah Hex. He leaned his hands on the desk and got in Rip’s personal space, but at least that got Rip to pay attention to him. “When did my partner nearly die?” he asked as soon as he had it.

Rip seemed taken aback. “What?” 

Mick knew he had heard it and continued with that line of questioning. “Was it under your command?”

Rip shook his head in confusion. “I don’t understand what you mean.”

Mick knocked something he hoped was breakable onto the floor. It did not break, but it still got a wince out of Rip. “Do I have to kill you now?”

Rip got control over himself and straightened his back to try to get control of the situation. It was a good effect, Mick had to admit. When a Time Master did that way of straightening to make themselves look like the person in charge, generally people tended to listen automatically. Unless those people were bounty hunters, in which case they knew that the Time Master wanted them to listen, and would listen when there was no reason to indicate they didn’t give a shit. “Mr. Rory, I have no idea what you're talking about. Mr. Snart didn't almost die. And I thought you'd gotten off of your mission of killing my team.” 

And that was what Mick had been worried about. Time Masters could be incompetent douches when they wanted to be. “Did his body ever start to die? Otherwise this wouldn't happen.”

A blank stare met his accusation followed a moment later by confusion. Which Mick hadn't been expecting. He had thought Captain Time Master had at least some idea how the bounty hunters that served his organization - former organization, whatever - were made and kept loyal, or that he'd at least wondered about it enough to go ask one of them. But Mick watched his face go through connecting the dots between what had already been said and what he knew and still draw a blank. “What wouldn't happen, Mr. Rory?”

Mick sighed, pressing his palm flat along the desk. "Do you know how bounty hunters are made?"

Rip grimaced: some idea then. Not a total ignoramus. “I have a vague idea that something is done to them – I’m sorry, to you – at the Vanishing Point, but beyond that it wasn't really my area of expertise.” 

Oh, so he learned enough to know he didn’t want to know anymore. Coward. 

“The process isn’t pleasant. It involves us being tortured to death and brought back several times. But they put something into us so we don’t die. As soon as that something becomes convinced our body’s dying, it goes active.”

Rip gave a vaguely upset expression, but one without much surprise.

Mick leaned over his desk to study the expression. “You knew they tortured us.”

“Yes, I did,” Rip admitted. He did not meet Mick’s eyes as he was saying it.

Mick grunted at him, leaning back. 

“It seemed a kinder fate than getting killed by the Time Counsel,” Rip tried to explain.

Mick shrugged, though whether it was because he didn’t care about Rip’s explanation or whether it was even odds for what was worse, even he didn’t know. He had more important business to attend to at the moment. “So I ask you again, when did Snart start to die?”

Now Rip turned to him in annoyance. “Tell me, Mr. Rory, how did Snart get whatever it was that they gave you when you became a bounty hunter?”

Mick sighed. “Because I gave it to him.”

Rip raised an eyebrow. 

Mick explained. “It can sometimes lay dormant in a person for years and only become active when they start to die.” 

Rip’s expression took on a fascinated tone followed by a planning one. Mick was backing off before he got any ideas to use it: he had a horrifying vision of Rip trying to use it on that kid of his. The best way to do that with him seemed to be to indicate that it was morally wrong. 

“They told me how to do it when I said I wanted to torture Snart for a long time without risking killing him. They liked it as, if I brought him to the point of dying, repeatedly, it would start doing unpleasant things to him, too.” Mick sighed. “I may have meant to torture him when I asked about it.”

"Yes, well, you were under their influence.” He frowned, pulling out of the planning face as he reviewed the rest of what Mick was saying. “But you've starting noticing symptoms of it in Mr. Snart?”

"I’ve started noticing things, expressions he makes. So, I ask again, when did you let my partner start to die?"

“Well, I hate to break it to you, Mr. Rory, but as far as I know, he didn't.” Rip turned to him with a glare. “Perhaps something happened while you were in the bar fight? Or on any of the other mission alterations you go on against my orders?” Ah. Of course he would turn it back to that. 

“As far as I know, he didn’t get fatally injured on any of those. But I know you review the information Gideon has on all of our health. So has he had any severe infections? Gunshot wounds through cloth? Anything like that?” 

There was a momentary flick of guilt on Rip’s face, but it was so fast that if Mick hadn’t been watching for it, he would have missed it. 

“Did any part of him start to die before Gideon fixed him?" he needled him further.

That got Rip’s expression to go even guiltier. His voice when he spoke was even and slow: he was considering every word. “Do you mean to say that if any part of him started to die, it would become active?”

"I believe so. Of course, that hasn't really been experimented with. We're typically in a sufficient amount of pain by the time it goes active that our whole body is dying.”

Rip looked away. “Well, you beat him black and blue recently. If you're looking for the culprit…” 

Mick wondered whether one had to be trained to do a shrug that much like an elementary school playground fight. He had never seen the point of it, but it was the expression kids, and evidently some adults, sometimes made when they expected to have to give up information and wanted to be beaten up or threatened to make them feel like they had the moral high-ground. They usually didn’t, but they wanted to be convinced they did before telling what they knew. It meant Rip had the information, and expected Mick to get it out of him.

Mick was more than happy to oblige, after rolling his eyes at the stupidity of it. He slammed his hands down on Rip’s desk. Rip, to his credit, stayed his ground, despite looking like he wanted to take a step back. He leaned across the desk so they were within two feet of each other.

“Bruises don't do it. That much I know,” Mick explained. “Even broken ribs. Which I stopped short of. If I had punctured his lung or had burned any part of him, maybe that would have done it. But I did not.” He met Rip’s eyes. “Now, you know something. Do I need to torture you to get it? Because you know the bounty hunters’ reputation for torture.”

Rip sighed. “Would what happened to his hand and the shock his body went into afterwards have done it?”

Mick took a step back, reviewing his memories. He drew up empty. “His hand? What happened to his hand?”

“Oh, you didn't know?” Evidently Rip had been keeping it to throw it in Mick’s face at some future moment, at least so that tone said. Well then! But on the information he had just said, that sounded troubling. Rip saw his frown and continued, “He froze it and shattered it trying to get us not to kill you.”

Mick’s mind went full stop. “What?!” he said a moment later. 

Froze it? Cold gun must have been involved. And shattered it. To try to get them not to kill him. It must have been in the assassins hold out, Nanda Parbat. Which meant after Mick had handcuffs Len to the wall. Mick frowned wondering why Len had not just used his lock picks. There was a lock. He had no doubt that Lenny could find it, and yeah, it would take him a little longer than his usual ten seconds to be able to pick it, but it wasn’t like he didn’t know Len kept his lock picks in the little pocket by his wrist. 

Unless he hadn’t been keeping them there. 

“Yes, apparently, he aimed that gun of his at the handcuffs you had him in and hit his hand by accident. Then, he followed you to the Nanda Parbat and ran in after you and shouted at us not to kill you. His hand was tucked away, so no one noticed it until Ms. Lance caught him when he almost passed out from shock.”

“He froze off his hand.” If he hadn’t been keeping them in his wrist pocket – for some bizarre reason that he would bet money was either “hero” or “Gideon’s replicator” or some combination off the two that he would have to have a conversation about, with both Lenny about how “good is not (always) stupid” and with Gideon about “give a man his tools” – but if he hadn’t, and he had heard Kronos’ threat to his sister and their new friends without being able to do anything about it, Christ, that would make Lenny do a lot of desperate things. 

“Yes, and shattered it and didn’t tell anyone. Gideon was fortunately able to rebuild it from the database of your DNA,” Rip explained, as if that should settle it. His hand was repaired, all better. Never mind about good not always being stupid. At least now if they ever got back he would have great fuel for his next Paladin character in their D&D games. 

“He shattered his hand and then chased after me to get to me before I killed you or you killed me,” he clarified.

“Yes,” Rip answered. 

Oh, Len. He wanted to go back and cradle Len to him and tell him that he would never hurt Lisa. But there was still one bit of info he needed to hear. “And he didn't tell you about it until he was in shock.”

Rip gave an odd shrug. “I think that even then he wouldn't have. Ms. Lance had to all but catch him, and I brought him to Gideon’s med bay.” Yeah, and Mick could imagine that conversation. The last person he had shown vulnerability to had turned on him and threatened him and his sister and then up walked their captain, demanding in his Time Master way that Len trust him, when Rip had screwed up so badly that somewhere in Len’s mind he must have recognized it. Yeah, there was no way Len was showing Rip vulnerability in that state. 

“He froze off his hand, and shattered it, and then chased after me into Nanda Parabas to stop me and you from killing each other and then didn’t tell anybody he was one hand short until he went into shock.” That was more worrying than Rip knew: it sounded like Lenny in a fit of relapse to when he was working under his dad. Mick grimaced and swore to himself he was going to have a talk with Len about that later. “That would definitely do it.” 

And if he was acting more like he did under Lewis, Len’s mind must have been making comparisons too. That injury would very possibly put Len out of a career and use to the team. He knew personally what happened when Rip decided someone was not useful or necessary: the same thing that happened when Lewis decided someone was no longer necessary to one of his teams; even if their team boss now did not shoot people in front of the team, the threat was still there. (Mick had doubts whether he would ever be able to hear talk of marooning someone again without a cold chill going up his spine). He had no doubt that Len had made similar calculations. He glanced at the door, wanting to get back to the room. 

However, he had one more question to find out how bad it was. “Out of curiosity, what hand was it?” He was asking to see Rip’s reactions more than anything: even in a state of panic, Len would have frozen off his left hand, not knowing that it would be regrown, as that would still allow him use of his right hand and if worse came to worst he could figure out a way to attach his left hand to the cold gun like a cold-gun bearing Ash from Evil Dead. 

“His right,” Rip said.

“The fuck? Snart's right handed.”

Rip did not get it. “Yes, but he's still got his left one at full capacity, which he is very gifted with.”

Mick gazed at Rip and decided not to attempt to explain further. “Just stop trying to pretend to be Mr. Understanding. It will go better for you.”

\--

He had had to ask Gideon where Len was, as he was not in Mick’s room anymore. Len was where Gideon said he was. He was holding a squish ball with white knuckles and trembling. On Mick entering, he shoved the squish ball down behind him and watched Mick enter, his expression almost unreadable. 

Now that Mick knew what he was looking for, he could see how far along he was: the pupils were fully black, all that deep blue-green all but gone; the slower movements but faster when a decision was made to move fast; the shallow breathing; the glancing around as if there was something he needed but he couldn’t figure out what it was – though that was probably unconscious at this point. A second of eye contact was all Mick got before Len turned his gaze elsewhere. “Hey Mick,” he asked, taking a few deep breaths.

Mick crossed the room and gestured at the ball. “To retrain your hand?”

If someone didn’t know Len, they wouldn’t have known just by looking at him that his temper flared. A little motion backwards with his head and a little flare of his nostrils told Mick all he needed to know about what Len’s temper was actually doing.

“I see someone told you about that.” He lifted it up and wiggled his fingers. “As you can see, I have it back. No worries.”

Mick stared at him, noting that Len still refused to look at him, just a quick glance up, then a glance away. “Rip told me,” Mick answered.

Len’s eyes flashed to his face then back to stare off at nothing. “I didn’t think he cared. I was able to sharp shoot last time we were out, as that cowboy will confirm.”

“Listen, even if you didn’t, he tries to throw you off the ship, I will shoot him,” Mick tapped his heat gun. “Plus, he wasn’t the one that brought it up. I was. He thought Gideon could heal anything, so why should you be concerned over the loss of a limb. Idiot didn’t seem to realize that for us, losing a hand, particularly your main hand, without knowledge that Gideon could repair it, was not a decision made lightly.”

Len met his eyes, and the corners of his lips turned up, just a little. “What were you checking?” 

Mick shook his head. “First I want to say something.”

Len gave a little exhale through his nose and a small smirk. “Talking’s never been our thing, Mick.”

Mick took his hands. Len all but flinched in shock, his eyes wide with uncertainty. “You were willing to risk your livelihood to save me from them.”

Len shrugged. “Or to save them from you. Between them and a you that’s had your warmth burned out of you – and I know you have some, so don’t try to say you don’t - I’d put my money on you any day.”

Mick shook his head. “Either way, you were willing to risk your livelihood.”

Len picked up his hand and began playing with the knuckles, looking anywhere but Mick. “There wasn’t another way.”

Mick sat next to Len. “I’ll stick with you even if you make it so you can’t steal things anymore.”

Len took that as a smack, head rocking back, gaping at Mick and eyes getting glassy. Mick must have been even more dead-on than he had thought. “Thank you for letting me know.” 

“Besides, you can be the spider at the center of the web. You’ve already set up the networks.”

Len ducked his head, as he always did when someone complimented him on something other than stealing, and looked away. “Why are you doing this, Mick?”

“Because I want you to know,” Mick replied, then grabbed Len’s chin and met his eyes. “So you don’t do anything else like that and then not telling anybody what happened.”

Len shrugged off Mick’s hand, but he had a faint smile on his lips. “I was planning on seeing Gideon and having her fix it as soon as I got out of there.”

“Lenny, you know the symptoms of hypothermia. You know how quickly someone with it needs to get it checked out.”

“Yeah, I know, and I was trying.” Len gave a smile and a shrug at Mick. “What could I do?”

Mick laughed, shaking his head, and leaned back on the bed. “God, what a bundle of issues we are, huh?”

“Yeah.” Len winced and blew air out of his lips in a controlled manner. “Now, how ‘bout you tell me what’s wrong with me?”

“What have you been feeling? Go over it again.” Mick took Len’s fingers and squeezed, feeling the coldness of his fingers and tracing his thumb down to feel his pulse. Len inhaled sharply. Mick moved his hand so his thumb was inside Len’s palm and squeezed again. Len gave his sideways smirk at him and squeezed his hand around Mick’s thumb. They were back as partners: good.

“I feel feverish and unable to get warm all the time now. It used to just happen when my heart rate spiked. My skin is colder than it’s ever been. My blood pressure will just randomly give out, leaving me dizzy and weak. And I’m exhausted. And my gut sometimes clenches up bad enough I’m worried I might have radiation poisoning.” Len’s eyes flicked away. 

Mick could tell there was more. He’d bet a small bank that the other ones had only just started showing up in the past day and involved the half of being a bounty hunter that was added by the Time Masters.

“And?” Mick squeezed Len’s hand again.

“And sometimes moments of disorientation, or not disorientation so much as… I forget when I’m from, if I have to pick words for it. I’d think my body’s going back into shock, but Gideon can’t find anything wrong with me that would be causing it, and I’ve been giving myself more of the solution Stein gave me when I first had shock. But Gideon can’t find out what it is. So the only thing I can think it could be would be from what you gave me.” 

Mick nodded. “That time thing is a sign of it.”

Len turned to him, studying his face. “What is it? Did they give you some kind of STD at the Vanishing Point? Is this your speech of telling me you gave me HIV or the Time Master equivalent? Either way, I’d appreciate being told if I’m now on a ticking clock.”

“It was only supposed to become an issue if you started to die. Usually within the week. Or chances are it would be out of your system,” Mick said, though by this point, both he and Len knew that freezing off one’s hand and going into shock was interpreted as one’s body starting to die.

Len nodded and pointed out, “Except that wasn’t the plan back on the Time Masters’ ship,”

“My ship, not the Time Masters’.”

Len tipped his head.

“They give the bounty hunters their own time ships.”

Len grinned at him. “Captain Mick.”

“Shut up,” Mick said, but he grinned too.

The smile slid off Len’s face. “But back to the point, you intended on using whatever it was to torture me.”

Mick nodded, his own smile falling away. “To keep you alive while I tortured you, yes. But then I decided not to.” He sighed. “And then you froze your hand off and came after me and went into shock.” 

Len shrugged. “What can I say? Maybe I’m getting sentimental. Besides, if anyone’s going to take you down, it should be me.”

Mick chuckled. “You are getting sentimental. But you already knew that.”

“Don’t tell Lisa.” Len wrinkled his nose.

“Your sister already knows.”

Len inclined his head. “Alright. Maybe she does. Don’t tell anyone aboard the Waverider or I will ice you.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

“Though you might want to tell Boy Scout. I think he’s under the impression that partners is only professional. At least I hope that’s what he thought when he suggested he and I be partners.”

Mick laughed. “When was this?”

“1950s.”

“I think he meant professionally,” Mick agreed.

Len started laughing but a spasm rocked through his body halfway through. He reached out for Mick. Mick took his hand and arm. “Ooh. That hurts,” he said and took a few deep breaths. “Now how ‘bout you tell me what I have to look forward to and what it was exactly you gave to me?”

And that was what he had been trying to avoid answering. How did one tell someone a thing like that? “It’s not an STD exactly.” He remembered about sexually transmitted diseases from what Len had made sure he looked up, and realized that a number of them were blood-borne. “I don’t think it is, at any rate. No one’s experimented with it as an STD, let me put it that way.” Len raised an eyebrow in response, so Mick added, “It’s only when you’re injured a lot that it starts to think your body’s dying. And becomes active.”

Len nodded, taking in the information, pupils going wide enough to mask the blue of his eyes again. That was actually kind of hot when he thought about when his own eyes did that, but he doubted Len would agree if he found out his eyes were doing that. “So you’ve said. What the hell is it?”

“Nothing that exists on earth in 2016. And nothing Gideon would be able to track. Because they didn’t want us running off with knowledge of what were the ups and down of it. So we have to piece it together ourselves and stick with other bounty hunters.”

“To keep the bounty hunters loyal,” Len concluded.

Mick nodded. “And when it becomes active, it makes the person become a lot stronger and harder to kill.”

“Makes sense. Time Masters wouldn’t want their bounty hunters easily beaten.”

And now he had to say it, because Len deserved to know. Mick took a deep breath and blurted out, “It also makes the bounty hunters immortal if we aren’t murdered.”

Len tipped his head. “When you say immortal?”

“We don’t age.”

Len exhaled a laugh, once, twice and then grinned. “Are you telling me they made you an immortal bounty hunter?”

Mick nodded. “Yeah. That’s exactly what I’m telling you.”

“What’s the downside, other than not knowing everything about it?” Len asked.

Mick paused and stared out into space, jaw sitting hard as he clenched his teeth. “Let’s just say there are a few big ones.”

Len winced again, but shrugged it off as an annoyance. “Such as?” 

“What I did to you, it will kill you, even without torture. Those pains you’re feeling - I know you try to cover them up, and you're doing it well - but those pains happened to me, and it isn’t the torture that kills you.”

Len turned his gaze on Mick. “How long do I have? And I thought you said it pulls you back from death?”

Mick shrugged. “You come back to life afterwards, but in the process, you die.”

Len mouthed, “What the…?”

Mick nodded. “When I said reborn, I meant it.”

Len sat back. “You mean how Ms. Lance was brought back to life? The Lazarus Pit? The Time Masters have one of those for their bounty hunters? And I’ll need to go visit it?”

Mick shook his head. “No. What I gave you does that on its own.” 

Len started nodding, but then shook his head and blinked as if it strained the reach of what he thought he would have to deal with in his lifetime. “So I die and come back to life. Any other downsides?”

“You liked that? You’re going to love this next part, Lenny.”

“By which you mean I’m not gonna like it at all,” Len said.

Mick shrugged. “The Time Masters have a vat of a liquid that we all drink from once a week. They don't tell us what it is, but I've tried with blood, and it still satisfies the need. I'm not sure if it satisfies in the same way, but if it does, we've got about a week between feeding before we start to feel it. And by feel it, I mean, it doesn't kill us, but it makes us wish it did.”

Len blinked, opened his mouth, closed his mouth, and licked his lips before opening his mouth again. “You require drinking blood to live? Is that what you’re saying?”

Mick nodded. “Yeah.”

“You turned me into a vampire?” 

Mick smiled and gave a slow nod. “Yeah.”

“Haunt the night forever with you. ‘Children of the night, what music they make’ sort of shit. That kind of vampire?”

Mick broke into a grin. “Before this conversation, I'd never considered what they did to us in that light, but yeah. Vampire. I like that.”

Len leaned his shoulder against Mick’s. Mick tensed but didn't move away. “So we need to take that into our plans. Sunlight isn't a thing that will make us catch fire, obviously.”

Mick chuckled. “That would be funny.”

Len gave a full, palm-up shrug and shook his head at him. “No, Mick, it wouldn’t. You'd basically be Jax and Stein briefly, but in a lot pain while it happened. And chances are you would only burn once and too quickly to enjoy it much."

“Point.”

Len nodded and considered, “So where did you get the blood to experiment with?”

Mick shrugged. “Yours.” 

Len stared at him. 

“It was a spur of the moment decision not to use theirs anymore. I wanted to test my theory.” Mick continued, “And then one of the assassins' guards.”

Len nodded. “How much would you say you’d need every week?”

“Not much. It seems to have more to do with how often you get it than how much. And you do feel sunlight. It doesn't burn you. But it does - well, at night and when it's cloudy, you get heightened senses. During the day, you get your normal ones. Which considering this is you and me were talking about here…”

Len finished his sentence for him, “We've already got fairly heightened ones. And we're thieves, so we do most of our thieving at night anyway.”

Mick studied him, noting the speed of acceptance. “So you don’t mind?”

Len shrugged and wiggled his free hand. “We come from a city where people developed superhuman abilities after being struck by a particle accelerator going off. And where the Flash is a thing we have to deal with.” Len tipped his head. “Being a vampire will be fun.” He drew in another breath and winced. “Dying will not be. How long do I have?”

Mick reached over and put a hand on the back of Len’s head, applying a little pressure. He knew that helped a little. Len gave him a small smile. “The Time Masters tortured us all to death, so I don’t know how long you have. I can watch and tell you how far along in the process you are though.”

“And how far is that currently?”

Mick looked at him and observed. His pupils were returned to normal, but his skin was cold to the touch. “Fairly soon now you’re going to feel hungry. You won’t know that’s what it is at first, because it doesn’t feel like normal hunger. But I’ll let you know what it is.”

Len nodded. Mick put an arm around his shoulders, pulling Len over to him. Len let Mick rest him against his chest.


	6. Chapter 6

They left the town of Salvation after having taken care of the immediate bounty hunters on their trail. Mick didn’t seem too upset about them, but Len wasn’t sure, and was trying to think of a way to ask him. For now, though, that involved Len lounging on the console on the bridge reading an instruction manual, turning over how to ask it in his mind. 

A sudden spasm of strangeness hit his gut and wouldn’t let go. It spread over his entire body, so that he all but had to lean back to let it wash over him. Mick behind him, made a sound halfway between clearing his throat and chuckling. Len frowned at Mick and the expression of mischievousness on his face. The sensation began getting worse, to the point it was taking his breath away.

“Come on! Do you have to stretch like that on the bridge?” Jax said.

“Mr. Snart is welcome to stretch wherever he sees fit,” Stein said. 

“Yeah, but, I sometimes eat breakfast there!” 

“Kid, I’m…”

The sensation began to sting, starting from his gut and moving to his ears. He moved his hand to his gut, but everything felt like he was moving through jelly. It felt like he was breathing jelly too, actually. Len tightened his other hand into a fist, dug his nails into his palm, and took a deep, deliberate breath. 

Just as suddenly as it came, the sensation passed, and Len found himself able to breathe and hear again.

“Are you okay?” Jax said, clearly repeating what he had said, judging by his and Stein expressions.

Len turned to Mick, who had an expression of mild concern, but was otherwise not moving over to help or looking panicked.

Len nodded. “Yeah, kid. I’m fine.”

\--

Later, Len cornered Mick. “I felt something earlier.”

Mick nodded. “Mmm. What did it feel like?”

Len considered. “It wasn’t entirely pleasant. But it felt like a cross between getting off and being stabbed with something sharp in all my nerves, if that makes any sense.”

“That’s the bloodlust.” Mick closed his eyes and turned his lips up in an expression that could be called a longing smile if there wasn’t so much pain and disgust in it.

“That’s what I’m gonna start feeling more regularly?”

Mick gave a slow nod.

Len moved over to him. “Does it ever pass?”

Mick shrugged. “The tingling gets worse the closer it gets to the end of the week. When a bounty hunter fucked up something bad, they used to lock them up to let that feeling get real bad. By the time they let them out, there was nothing a bounty hunter wouldn’t swear to.” Mick put down his tools and moved away to grab a towel to wipe his hands on. Len could see guilt on his face and wondered what he had done under that torture.

He caught his partner’s hand when the man started wiping down his tools. Mick snapped his head to look at Len. “We’ll make them pay. That I promise.” 

Len met his eyes and saw momentary longing, anger and vengeance, and then fear, abject and wide-eyed fear. Len promised himself he was going to ice bit by little bit whoever had taught Mick that level of that emotion. 

Mick shook his head. “I don’t want you to promise that.”

Len frowned. “Why not? What do you think they’re going to do?”

Mick shook off Len’s hand. “You don’t want to know.” 

Len caught his jacket before he could turn away. “Yes, I do. Now, what?”

Mick huffed at him. “Most of their bounty hunters are former time pirates. Sometimes, they get ahold of a couple who care for each other. It happened while I was there. One of them told the Time Masters to fuck off. They’d said it to the East India Company and captured a few of their ships and it worked well enough for them. It didn’t work against the Time Masters. They kept a hold of one, half turned him but didn’t let him die or feed. And the other they had go in front of him every week to feed from their pool. And they gave him a monitoring device. If the bounty hunter even stepped one foot out of line, it would notify… Druse and he’d torture the guy in their cage and pull up an image in the bounty hunter’s helmet of the guy in the cage being tortured. That awaits us if we go near them.”

Len stared, taking in the meaning of Mick’s warning. “That’s only if we fail. If we do this plan, it’s gonna have to be planned just by us, maybe with a little help from Ms. Lance and Gideon. But we will make them pay.”

\--

Len walked into the library and threw himself down in front of the computer screen, letting the wave of bloodlust that had come over him while on his way up the hall from Mick’s wash over him, burning his veins, and then sighing and curling up on the chair. “Gideon,” he greeted.

“Yes, Mr. Snart.” 

“Give me all the information you can on Druse.”

“Time Master Druse was brought into the Time Masters in...” A half hour later, Len had ignored another spasm of bloodlust and had sworn that Druse was going to die as slowly and painfully as he could manage. 

He was getting up to leave the library when the world again tilted. His ears felt like someone had smacked them. He put a hand out for the wall, but he was not in time nor close enough. His legs no longer held his weight, so he sagged to the floor. The room was dimming. “Mr. Snart,” Gideon kept repeating. “Mr. Snart.” He could hear an alarm going off in a distant hallway. Probably something he’d accidentally set off, a trip wire or something to do with hacking into a computer. He dragged himself over under the desk in the middle of the room, hoping nobody would find him, as clearly something had gone wrong on this job – admittedly most places he didn’t have to account for a security system released unconscious-making gas into the rooms. An air duct just big enough for him to wedge himself into was there – no one ever checked the air ducts – and he thanked genetics for his narrow shoulders, popped open the duct and slid in before losing consciousness. 

\--

“Mr. Snart needs immediate medical attention,” Gideon informed the people in Rip’s office. Mick’s head snapped up.

“Gideon, where is he?”

“The library.” 

Mick was striding down the hall in a second. He noted Canary walking next to him. They got to the library and the door swung open.

No Snart.

“Where is he?” Canary yelled as Rip pushed himself to the front to stare into the room. 

“I don’t know,” said Rip. “Gideon? Are you sure he is in here?”

Mick shoved Rip aside and strode into the room. “Snart?” he called. There was no response. An image swam before his face of not being able to find Len in time before the blood killed him, which was what the alarm he had told Gideon to set on Len must have meant. “Fuck. Lenny, come on. Don’t do this,” he muttered under his breath, dropped to a crouch and peered under the designed ledge around the room, hoping Len had lost consciousness there and that they’d be able to get him medical attention in time. No such luck. 

“Gideon, you said he was here,” Rip said. “And in need of medical attention.”

“He is, Captain.”

“Where is he, you antique piece of shit?” Mick demanded as his mind took the initiative to go into tracking instincts hammered into him over his years as a bounty hunter. “Actually, hold that thought.” He turned to Rip and addressed him as bounty hunter to Time Master, “Captain, I can find him, but it requires you to get out.”

“What? Why?” Rip sounded offended. 

For the love of…

Mick turned to him, his eyes already slits. Rip jumped backwards. Canary inhaled air a little too sharply and tensed, for all she was probably the bravest person on the ship. She must have never seen his eyes do that before. “Do I really need to explain?” Mick asked, dropping to one knees and inhaling. “I can still smell you there, Captain,” he warned. Rip, wisely, retreated.

Len’s scent was a great many things, most of them connected to feelings that they like to pretend they didn’t feel and, underneath those feeling and memories, the sick scent of where the time bastards broke future bounty hunters, which he now guessed was the scent of people half turned into bounty hunters combined with the scent of raw, empty hunger. He hadn’t known that last part had gotten so strong. 

It was coming from under the console in the center of the room. He checked and found an air duct underneath. It was open. He sighed, stuck his arms into it and ran into person. An alarmingly air temperature person. With Lenny’s hair, his features. He lay down on the floor to reach in far enough to catch Len’s shoulders and pulled him out.

Len wasn’t moving, not even to breathe, and his lips were purple. “Snart!” He shook him. Len flopped around. Like a newly dead body. He felt his heart stop. “Snart! Come on, Snart you bastard! Don’t do this! It’s not funny!” He put a hand to Len’s face and felt a weak pulse. Still alive then, but from the looks of it, not for long. “Snart. Don’t do this. Don’t do this.” He patted Len’s face. Len didn’t wake up. “Lenny, please, come on. Come on.”

A hand rested on his shoulder. He looked up to see Canary and the Professor. “He’s not breathing. We need to get him breathing,” he explained.

Professor nodded. “Gideon and I can get him breathing again.”

“He needs blood. You need to give him blood.” Mick said. “Before it kills him.” A horrifying piece of knowledge dawned on him. “Before what I gave him kills him. You’ve got to save him, Professor. He’s dying ‘cause of what I gave him.”

Professor and Canary met eyes. “Walk him to the med lab,” Canary told him. He picked up Len’s body. “Gideon, can you synthesize blood?”

“Yes, Ms. Lance.”

“Do so. And call Rip down there too.”

She guided Mick to med lab. “Mick, put him into the chair. We’ll save him.” It took a little more coaxing, but finally he understood it was necessary to save Len’s life and laid Len’s blue lipped, not moving body into the med lab chair. Professor snapped to immediate motion, grabbing a blood bag. 

“Wait,” Rip told the Professor. “Mr. Rory, should he drink it or should it be given to him as an IV?” Rip asked Mick.

“Drink it? Captain Hunter, I-,” Professor started.

Mick interrupted, “No, he’s not far enough along to drink it yet.” He shook his head, still clutching Len’s hand even after putting him down and staring off, not really seeing med lab, for all he knew intellectually that that was where he was. 

Len was dying. Actually dying. And while his body might come back, memories sometimes didn’t. Every so often, something didn’t go right. The Time Masters didn’t care, but other bounty hunters tried to make sure that it went right more often than not, because it sucked to have a memory return in the middle of combat. But here he was experimenting with a great many things, and he had never been the type to look up how to do a given process if it didn’t concern him. That was something Len did, and why he was so good at planning jobs. And now Len was dying. And might not come back. 

He sucked in air, figuring that gut knowledge hadn’t hit him the day before when he was sitting there happily blabbing his head off about the process to Len, literally telling Len he was going to die. But seeing Len like that though. Knowing he had done this to him. That came crashing home as he watched the Professor hang the bag and stick Len’s elbow with it, taping in the needle. 

At the sharp inhale, the Professor and Canary turned to him. “Mr. Rory, I need to know if there is anything else that could bring him back to consciousness. Is there anything else you can think of? Mr. Rory?”

Mick shook his head, still intently staring at Len’s body. Rip approached and put a hand on his arm, “Mr. Rory?”

Mick’s eyes snapped over to Rip and he refocused them and reviewed what Professor was saying. When he did, he gave a nod, took his lighter out of his pocket and moved for Len with it. 

Canary caught him. “Mick, what are you doing?”

He shook her off, gestured away at Rip, lit the lighter, let it go out and pressed the side of it into Len’s palm. The warm metal and the side of the lighter should maybe jog something in there. He clasped Len’s hand around the lighter. 

Len coughed, gasped for breath, and coughed again, throwing his eyes open. There was a moment of panic in his eyes then he was breathing as a man saved from drowning. He saw Mick and started explaining, “Something went wrong with the mission. They had a security system that went on lock down…” 

Then he trailed off, recognizing the people behind Mick. “I wasn’t there, was I?” Mick shook his head, noting that even with the recognition, he was still intensely vulnerable – he was not putting back on the confident drawl and the posture, his accent was still there, but a less deliberate version of it. “I was in the library. Here.” Mick nodded, clasping Len’s hand again. He wondered if he should shove the other three out. 

Len licked his lips, giving a nod, and then glanced over Mick’s shoulder again. As more recognition hit, he pushed himself up, straightening himself back into Len-on-a-mission pose and glanced back at them with his face once again all sarcasm and sharp edges. Mick exhaled: Len was going to be alright, at least this time. Sure enough, when he spoke again, the ice-edged drawl was back in his voice. “For a moment, I thought a job had gone south and they were pumping something unconscious-making into the room.”

Mick nodded. “That was why you went into the air duct.”

Len inclined his head. “So they couldn’t find me after I passed out. Still, I prefer to know when it is rather than thinking I’m in a memory.” Len met Mick’s eyes. Mick held his, gave his hand another squeeze and then unlaced their fingers. 

The Professor asked, “Why don’t you tell us what is happening?”

Mick tensed. “Why don’t you fuck off?”

Canary said, “He just saved Leonard’s life, Mick.”

Mick huffed. “Fine. Professor, but only because we’re going to need you.”

Half an hour later, Professor and Canary had pulled up chairs, Rip was back out of the room, the Professor was opening and closing his mouth like a fish, and Canary wasn’t much better. 

When Mick paused, the Professor said, “I suppose there are more things in heaven and earth…”

“What’s that?” Mick asked.

“A quotation from Hamlet that seems to fit the moment.”

Mick frowned. “Except we’re talking about vampires, not ghosts.”

Professor made an expression that made watching the hyper actor hop around the screen for four hours worth it. “What? It involved Kenneth Branagh and death, and Lisa asked me to help her with her English project.” 

Len laughed. “When was that? She said you had words about it but never that she had actually gotten you to watch it.” 

“Her junior year. You were off on that job.”

Len wrinkled his nose. “Ahh.” He turned to Professor and Canary. “So when do I get to take this…?” He caught sight of the tube. “That ain’t the mix you gave me before.” He stared at it a few moments longer. “That’s blood, ain’t it?” 

Mick nodded. “Yeah, I figured it was the best way to prevent you from turning.”

Len turned to study him, eyes flashing around his face. Mick had never had any idea how Len saw what he saw or how much he saw, but he knew his eyes were now picking up on Mick’s earlier terror. He turned back to Professor. “How soon can I take this out?” 

“You should leave it in until Gideon tells you your stats are back to normal.” 

“And how soon should that be?” Len asked.

“I would say another five minutes.” Gideon informed them.

“Fine. Then I’d like to have a private conversation with Mick.”

\--

Len followed Mick to his room after he’d gotten the IV out of him. Mick kept reaching for his lighter and fidgeting with it. Len knew it was only a matter of time till he took it out and stared at it for at least a half hour. With Mick’s behavior now, Len was betting longer. He tapped him on the arm as they went by his room and gestured in, and Mick followed him. Len took out a piece of soapstone they’d grabbed from wherever and then grabbed a piece of specialty paper they’d found to burn slowly and turn the fire all sorts of colors as it did and handed it to Mick, guiding Mick to sit down in front of it. Mick pulled out his lighter and lit the paper before resting it on the soapstone and sighing. Len watched as his shoulders gradually release as he watched the fire burn the papers, the papers turning the fire colors as they burned. Mick had explained that different chemicals burned different colors and temperatures to him once. And once, in a post-coital moment of bliss when they were sleeping on their winnings in a luxury hotel in the Caribbean after a job particularly well done, he’d even gotten him to explain how different colors in fire felt different to his mind. Mick’s expression remained changeless either way. 

Finally, when ten of the papers had burned and Mick stopped reaching for more, blinked and turned to Len. 

“Mick, we gotta talk about this, you and I, as much as I don’t want to.”

Mick turned away and blurted out, “Sometimes people don’t come back. Well, they do, but it’s their bodies only. No memories. No personality.”

Len steepled his fingers and leaned his chin on them. “What are ways that could make me more likely to retain my memories?”

Mick shook his head. “Having somebody remind you. But that still sometimes isn’t enough. And sometimes doesn’t happen for a lifetime. Or more.”

Len studied him. “How long did it take you?”

Mick hunched his shoulder. Len scooted over and put a hand on Mick’s shoulder. Mick gave a broken sigh. Len stared because that broken sigh sounded far too close to catching back tears. “One day, I’m going to find that out.” He gave his head a little shake and wrung his hands. “Where’s my heat gun and tinkering set?” He started taking off a glove then tugged it back on. 

Len met his eyes. “I’ll help you find that out and get vengeance on Druse.” 

Mick nodded and gave the soapstone another glance. 

Len put a hand back on his shoulder. “And you don’t want me turned because I might actually die and not come back?” 

Mick worried his glove off again and began rubbing at his hands. “Yes. That is what I’m worried about. Now if you don’t mind, I need…”

Len sighed and handed him back the papers. Mick tore out another page, lighting it on fire before going back to staring at it. Len leaned back, watching his partner and calculating what this new revelation did to potential plans.


	7. Chapter 7

Len woke the following day and eased himself out of the arm Mick had thrown over him. Mick slept like the dead and just shoved his arm under the pillow, murmuring something about how Len was a cold hearted bastard for taking his blanket like that. Len couldn’t help but smile at that and dropped the comforter back into place.

His first stop was the kitchen. Martin, Kendra and Ray looked up. He recognized studying on Martin’s face, as though checking over an experiment for changes. He scowled at him. Ray seemed fascinated, if that wide-eyed rocking-on-the-balls-of-his-feet grin like a nerd confronted by scifi was any indication. Len gave him his coldest, most calculating expression – well, maybe not his coldest; that, he reserved for screw-ups on jobs and it was the last thing they saw before they died. He turned to Kendra, who was looking at him with a glimmer of fear and but an expression of sympathy. He inclined his head at her, but otherwise didn’t comment. 

He went over to the glorified microwave – Mick had told him what it was actually called, but it was a glorified microwave, and that’s what he was calling it – and grabbed a cup and a packet of hot cocoa. He opened the packet to find multicolor marshmallows and smiled: Gideon must have thought he needed that this morning. As he flopped down on a chair, tucked one leg against the table, prepared to glare out at the world, and took a sip of the cocoa, he admitted that maybe he did. 

They were still watching him go through his routine. “I wasn’t aware that me getting a cup of hot chocolate was so fascinating.” He met three sets of eyes.

None of them had the curtesy to even fake embarrassed. Time to take another tactic.

“You’re staring at me ‘cause you found out that I’m being turned into a vampire. And isn’t that medically fascinating, Professor. And isn’t that cool from a scifi perspective, Boy Scout. And doesn’t that mean you won’t be the only person who comes back from the dead without a Lazarus Pit or other devices, Hawkgirl.” 

After that, they all pointedly looked anywhere but him. He finished his hot cocoa in relative peace.

\--

After Mick had woken, he took a look at Len and recommended another treatment. Martin nodded and came down to the med lab with them to give it to him. Len decided to ask if Martin could show him how to administer it himself and to show them both how to do it – they had shared an unspoken communication that not only was it useful for this but if someone got injured on a future job they wouldn’t need to rely on doctors who took the occasional job with the Darbynians or on Dr. Skittish, as Mick like to call their current doctor. 

He was doing so when Rip walked in. “While I fully understand that what you are going through is pressing on your mind, we are on a rather tight time frame.”

Mick drew himself up to his full height. “If anything happens to my partner, Captain, I’m leaving the ship to go deal with him coming back. And before I go, I may just decide to light you on fire.” 

Mick’s full height was taller than Rip’s, and they both knew it. “I see. How much longer should this take?”

Martin said, “I am almost finished showing Mr. Snart how to administer the blood bag himself.”

Rip gave a nod at Martin and Len and a glance at Mick and left. Len released the breath he had been holding and commented, “The Time Masters should not have made their bounty hunters react to their blood like that.”

Mick nodded.

Martin looked from one to the other. “Like what, Mr. Snart, Mr. Rory?”

“Someone thought it a good idea to make their blood smell better than people who have lived their entire lives out of the timestream. Only Time Masters though, far as I can tell.”

Len turned to Martin’s alarmed face. “Don’t worry. We promise we won’t feed on the Captain.” 

Martin nodded. “Thank you. You have no idea how much that reassurance helps.”

\--

 

The team went to go get their younger selves. First, they went to get Mick, because Mick was most known to them, as Rip said and Mick agreed. The time Gideon deemed most likely for the Pilgrim to try was the fire. Mick was told to hang back too and decided to stay on the ship. Ray, therefore, grabbed teenage Mick, while Mick grumbled to Len about how he wouldn’t be affected by meeting his younger self because of something about him being a bounty hunter. Len would ask him later. He saw Ray bring a dazed teenage Mick aboard the Waverider and stepped on.

Mick was watching his younger self on the tv when Len found him. He settled in beside him and watched as teenage Mick sat like he was told and then started blinking his eyes in confusion.

“Look at him. He’s an idiot,” Mick grunted when he saw himself look around and frown. 

Len glanced at him then gazed back at the tv. Young Mick started looking around agitated and worrying his fingers at his jacket. Len had seen him do similar things when coming out of the fire trance, particularly when he lit something he wasn’t supposed to light on fire. Len turned to Mick who grunted, got up and went to the far side of the room. 

The teenager in the storage room blinked and frowned in confusion and looked around with increasing distress. And then realized seemed to dawn on him, as he gaped, stared at his hands and his lighter, as though trying to get away from them. His body began shaking and he threw himself on top of one of the boxes, looked at the lighter again, and wung it across the room, then dragged his hand through his hair and across his face. When he dragged them away from his face, he looked like he wanted to be ill. He looked down at his hands again, face becoming angrier as harsher emotions began to cross his expression and his heart. Then he curled them into fists and brought them down onto the metal storage crate next to him, pummeling it. It was a very short pummeling though, as he stopped just as suddenly as he had started, bringing his fist up to cover his mouth and to try to stuff his fists into his mouth.

Len turned back to Mick who was still focused on his tinkering equipment, a little too intently. He got up and walked to the front of the room, hearing Rip come in to say, “We’re here.”

“Where?” Ray asked.

“Starling City. Sara, I know I said don’t interact with yourself, but you know where you’re most likely to be. Therefore, you should be on the team.”

Mick stood up. “I’ll go too.”

Rip raised an eyebrow in surprise. “That’s very nice of you, Mr. Rory.”

Mick nodded. “Let’s make sure Birdie doesn’t die.”

They filed off the ship. Teenage Mick flinched as they entered into the storage area on the ship, and as they walked in he stood up. “Hey, I wanna know where you’re going.”

Mick turned to him, pointer finger out like a gun which he jammed into his younger self’s chest. “Stay here, you little punk.”

Teenage Mick took a step back. Mick turned for the hatch and hurried off the ship after Sara. “Hey!” teenage Mick shouted after them after the hatch had closed. “Are you going to kill me? ‘Cause I deserve it!” When the door did not reopen, he threw himself down on the storage crate again. 

Len winced. He knew that tone and knew it well. When he’d first met Mick – actually met him, not just been saved from being shivved by the angry kid who’d messed up the punks with the shivs – Mick had that attitude and kept saying that he deserved the electric chair. Time went strange and suddenly he felt the memory like it was happening to him over again. _“Hey, don’t be so hard on yourself. You didn’t mean it, right?”_

_“Fuck off, kid,” the older boy had said. “Just ‘cause I saved your scrawny punk ass, doesn’t mean we’re friends or anything.”_

_Leo, as he’d been called, being Leo and having both an acute knowledge of fear and a determination to ignore it, continued asking, “Do you _like_ fire or would you rather not see it?”_

_“I… I… I dunno, kid. What’s your problem anyway?”_

_Leo shrugged. “Somebody had to take the hit for my dad.”_

_“What’s that supposed to mean?”_

_Leo sat down next to the older boy. The older boy didn’t strike him or move away. “Dad and me’s involved with crime, and I fucked something up. Alarm went off. So here I am.”_

_The older boy turned to him in interest, though he was trying not to show it. “What were you trying to do?”_

_“Steal a thing.”_

_“Sounds like you’re quite a criminal already.”_

_Leo shrugged. “Yeah. This probably ain’t gonna be my last time in the can.”_

_The older boy nodded. “I start fires and shit. Most of the time I don’t realize I’m doing it till the fire’s out of control. When I don’t, my chest feels tight like I can’t breathe until I do.”_

_“What do you do here?”_

_“I don’t breathe.”_

_Leo sighed and opened his palm to reveal a lighter._

_“Hey! That’s mine!” the older boy grabbed for it._

_Leo handed it over. “I know. I grabbed this off one of the guards. Thought you’d want it back.”_

_The older boy snatched it and held it in his hand._

_Leo sighed. “My name’s Leo. Leo Snart.”_

_The older boy sighed and looked at him. “Mick.” Mick gave him a small smile._

Len shook his head, reminding himself that he wasn’t then, and then realized that a sound had drawn him from the memory, a buzz at the back of his ear. “Mr. Snart, your blood pressure has gotten sufficiently erratic that it is time for you to have another treatment.”

He nodded, got to his feet slowly enough to check stability on his feet, and walked for the med lab to try what Martin had shown him. 

“Gideon,” he said as soon as he’d gotten hooked up. “Something’s going on with my memory.”

“I can perform a check on the physical functioning of your brain, but anything that is typically done with the bounty hunters remains a mystery to me.”

“Do what you can.” Len leaned back in the chair as Gideon brought up the scanners.

“It would also be helpful if you could talk me through what is happening with your memories.”

Len nodded and thought about it. It was not that he was forgetting they were memories, and not losing them, that was for sure. Rather, with the memory that had just happened, in felt that he was fourteen years old again. “I feel like the amount of time between me and them is not there sometimes,” Len concluded. “Like the here and now is changing.”

“Temporal displacement,” Gideon informed him. 

“What?” 

Gideon explained, “The Time Masters put themselves through it deliberately to avoid attachment to a given time where they spend a lot of time.” 

Len put the information on that together with what he knew about the Time Masters and with Ray’s little inability to completely leave the 1950s. “Don’t like the sound of that. What are the effects? I take it death is not a result, unlike certain tv shows I can name. Not if they put themselves through it deliberately.”

“There are no ill effects for the Time Masters.”

“And for bounty hunters?”

“Again, I am not the correct source for such information, Mr. Snart.”

Len sighed. “I’ll go ask Mick then.”

\--

Mick was watching the tv into the room with his younger self, holding a beer when Len came back to the bridge. “Anything interesting happened?” he asked.

“We brought teenage Sara aboard. My teenage self is attempting to flirt. Badly.” Mick took a swig of beer. Len looked just in time to see teenage Sara smack teenage Mick. Mick started laughed. Len raised an eyebrow at Sara.

“I’ll go stop them.” Sara said, looking apologetic.

“My punk ass probably deserved it,” Mick commented.

Len got to his feet. “I’ll go too.” 

Mick eyed Len and muttered something that sounded like “sexual awaken sooner than expected.” 

Len rested his fingers on Mick’s shoulder, a small smirk on his face, and nodded at Sara that he would follow her into the storage room. 

Teenage Mick and teenage Sara looked up. Both sets of eyes looked him up and down. “Hey, if I’m scheduled to die, can I get a last request?”

“If it involves you screwing anybody, I’m not interested,” said teenage Sara.

“Yeah. You made that clear by smacking me.”

Sara pointed at Mick. “You, knock it off. You,” she pointed at her teenage self. “Hands to yourself.” 

Teenage Sara gave a sigh and an eye-roll. “Tell me I don’t act like that all the time.” 

Len decided to butt in from where he was lounging by the door. “Actually, most of the time, you kick butt and take names. Now, how bout you explain why she smacked you, Mick.”

Teenage Sara interrupted, “He told me I smelled nice.”

Teenage Mick shot back. “Yeah, I meant it as a compliment.” 

Len shook his head. “If she doesn’t like it, you gotta stop. You understand?” 

Teenage Mick frowned at him then looked away. 

“Hey, big guy, listen. I know you know right from wrong.”

“Listen, I already killed people, okay?” young Mick snapped at Len.

Teenage Sara backed away, toward her adult self. Adult Sara looked at her younger self trying to put adult her between herself and young Mick and said, “Really?”

“There’s no amount of knowing right and wrong that’s going to cover up that fact. So if you’re going to kill me, just do it already.”

Len sighed, leaned down and picked the lighter off the floor where teenage Mick had chucked it. “Here, Mick.”

The teenager gaped at him. “Why the hell are you giving it back to me?”

Len shrugged. “I trust you.” 

Teenage Mick stared, hand halfway to the lighter, unsure whether to take it or not. His eyes darted around Len, taking in every part of him. “I’d say you want to exchange numbers but I don’t got one right now.”

Teenage Sara teased, “Ooh! Tough guy’s got a crush.” 

He took a step back in horror. “No, I don’t got a crush on anyone, jerkwad!” 

Adult Sara turned to her. “You had a crush on Kevin Tyler from the ninth grade onward so watch it or I’ll tell everyone!” Young Sara made a horrified expression. Whoever Kevin Tyler was apparently someone worthy of stopping that secret from getting out in any way possible. “Come on. Let me show you something,” she said to her younger self.

Len smiled at teenage Mick. “Hey. Don’t worry about it, kid. I’m not straight myself.” And before the kid could look too hopeful, Len added, “But you’re younger than someone I raised, so no.” 

Mick nodded from the door. “Yeah. Kid. Don’t you have more important things to be focusing on now than your love life?” 

Len straightened up with a smirk. “You decide to come see if we’d accidentally wandered into another dimension?”

Mick grunted and met his younger self’s eyes. His younger self started and then stared in wonder. “Are you…?”

Mick shook his head at his younger self and snatched the lighter away before he could say anything else. “You shouldn’t have this.”

Teenage Mick looked like he’d been stabbed, and Len watched as the guilt started sitting heavy on his shoulders again. “You think I don’t know that?”

Len sighed at Mick. “Heatwave.”

Mick turned to him. “Kid needs to hear it from somebody.”

Len pulled the lighter off him. “Here, kid, take it. Keep it with you. Learn to manage your pyromania. There’s lots of little tricks to do it.”

Mick pointed at his teenage self. “You start a fire aboard this ship, I’ll kill you myself.”

Len opened his mouth, but Mick was already stalking off. Len gestured after him. Teenage Mick nodded, and Len went after adult Mick.

He caught up with him in the hall. “I hope you’re aware that doing that would…”

Mick turned to him. “Yeah, I’m aware of it. But threats of violence will hopefully keep his hands off that lighter.”

Len sighed. 

Mick turned to study him. “How are you doing?”

Len shrugged. “The blood infusions seem to be helping for now.”

“Good.”

“Mick, what starts happening with memories the further you turn?”

Mick straightened up as if someone had sent an electric current up his spine. “The induction process involves breaking your ties with the timeline. It takes a while to re-anchor them in a way that makes sense. Until you get to that point though, you might as well not have them.” Mick paused, considering the reasons Len could be asking. Len watched as he hit the right conclusion: his frown deepening the slight wrinkles between his eyes and his shoulder hunching just as his teenage self had done.

“So that’s what’s happening. And I can re-anchor them?”

Mick nodded. “You will, probably in much less time than I did.”

“Can I start doing it now, bit by bit?”

Mick frowned. “It hasn’t really been done before, but anything is worth a shot.”

“Walk me through it.”

“You’ve started having time lapses?”

Len shook his hand back and forth. “Started having times when I’m not sure how much time has passed between me and the memory. Might as well be happening now.”

Mick nodded. “Time lapses. They suck.” He considered. “Next time you get one, I’ll walk you through organizing it.”

Len inclined his head. “Now back to you.”

Mick grunted. 

Len sighed. “We could slip him a hint as to the ways you learned to manage it.”

Mick turned to Len. “The less said to him the better.”

Len cursed and reminded himself to be patient. “Why?”

Mick turned to him. “Listen, Snart, Len. They didn’t have much of an idea what to do with pyromania by 2016. You agree?”

Len nodded. “You and I had to find out what worked and didn’t based on trial and error.”

Mick nodded and glanced down the hall. “And that was after Izzi began working with me.”

“I remember.”

“How much of an idea do you think the juvie prison guards and psych ward at Iron Heights had in the mid 80s?”

Len froze and glanced back down the hall. “Is there anything we can do?”

Mick closed his eyes and grimaced. “Best thing for him is to keep the lighter you gave back to me then a secret. Also, getting to go see that Lag BaOmer and then going to watch the candles on Hannukah helped. The CO’s face when he realized what he’d let me go watch when you wanted to take along a friend was amazing.”

Len smiled, “Why do you think I put in paperwork for it after we met?” 

Mick laughed. “Yeah. But the best thing for him right now is to keep it a secret. He has to act like he has it under control or they’ll institutionalize him.”

Len’s nostril flared and he shook his head, muttering something under his breath then turning to Mick and saying, “I hate cops so much sometimes.”

“We both do, Leonard,” Mick agreed.

Len gave him a small smile. “I’m experiencing it, ain’t I? With my feelings at least.”

Mick chewed on his lip. “You might be.”

Len sighed. “Later today, teach me.”

Mick turned to Len. “One thing you’re going to like is that it’s easier to measure time in terms of jobs and missions than days and years.”

Len grinned at him. Mick smirked back.

They walked out of the hall onto the bridge. 

“So, Gideon have any idea where in the timeline Carmen Sandiego is?” Mick said as he walked in.

Ray looked up from where he and Rip and Martin were and gaped. “I’m amazed that you know who Carmen Sandiego is?”

“There were computers installed in the library at Iron Heights, and they had that game installed on them. I had to do something while Snart was planning our next job.”

Len was staring at him, expression showing his concern. “Please tell me you didn’t nickname her that.”

Mick gave a noncommittal shrug. Len closed his eyes in a wince but had a small smirk on his face. 

Rip sighed. “In answer to your question, Mr. Rory, no, we are no closer to finding out when in time she is.”

Mick’s expression tightened. “Then I want Snart’s timeline monitored.”

“Yes, Mr. Rory. I will start doing so at once,” Gideon responded.

Len raised a questioning eyebrow at Mick. 

“While I do find your friendship admirable, Mr. Rory, we cannot focus exclusively on Mr. Snart.”

“Actually, we should. Given the people she’s gone after so far, my guess is the next person’s going to be Snart.”

Before Rip could protest against Mick’s assertion, which could very well go down the Mick is a meathead direction again and that would mean Len would have to threaten Rip, Len drew out of that conversation, “Mick, when you said you asked only bounty hunters how to turn another person into a bounty hunter, did you mention me by name?”

Mick’s face fell. The answer was clear. “I did.”

“What? Why ever would you tell them the name of one of my crew?”

Mick turned to Rip. “Think about what they knew about your crew before and ask that question again, Captain.”

Len studied Mick. “What I’m drawing from that is that you and she were closer than most of the bounty hunters. The two who were best at what they did, that kind of thing?”

Mick grunted. “We competed against each other and actually talked on occasion.”

Rip stared at him. “Are you telling me that bounty hunters have friends and that we are now up against one of yours?”

Mick laughed. “Bounty hunters don’t do friends. And neither do I, Captain. But the Pilgrim and Kronos had the type of relationship where we acknowledged each other’s expertise. She’d try to kill me, and I’d try to kill her, and we recognized it was just the other saying hello.” Mick frowned. “She never went after my past self before though.”

Len folded his arms across his chest. “Was she one of the ones you asked about how to make a bounty hunter?”

Mick drew in a breath and winced.

Rip turned to gape at him. “Her? You asked her, the scariest bounty hunter the Time Masters have, how to turn someone into a bounty hunter? Mr. Rory, my apologies, but what is wrong with you? Other than the pyromania and your…”

Len turned to him with the cold tension of a live wire. “I suggest you stop that remark right there, Captain. Mick and I have long been in a pecking order with the mob families in Central where it’s kill or be killed. You have to be a little scary to survive. To be trusted not to sell us out to the highest bidder. To be trusted not to wind up dead.”

Rip took a step back. 

Len kept on. “In case you had forgotten Mick’s and my previous profession and the fact that I’m not just a pickpocket, but a murderer as well, I suggest you reacquaint yourself with the two of us and wonder again why he would trust the scariest bounty hunter.”

Mick smirked at Len, who inclined his head at him and let his job face fade. “So you told her about me and she gave you advice on how to turn me. Which means she knows I’m at least halfway to being a bounty hunter.”

Rip stared between them and nodded. “I see. Mr. Rory, I agree with your earlier assessment. We will keep an eye of Mr. Snart’s timeline.”

Mick nodded. 

Gideon responded. “I have checked the timeline. She is most likely to go after him in either 1984 or 1989.”

Mick stared. “Why did you give two times, Gideon?”

Len froze, feeling a strange sensation growing in the pit of his stomach. “1989,” he whispered, his voice sounding strange to his own ears.

Judging by how Rip and Mick both turned to him, it sounded off to them too. 

“1984 wasn’t when she tried to kill me,” he added for explanation.

Mick gaped as though somebody punched him in the gut. 

Rip said, “You wouldn’t remember it as past events… wait, are you saying you remember her trying to kill you in 1989?”

Len shook his head. “She found a different way to remove me from the timeline.” The strange sensation was growing into an all-consuming tension. He sought Rip’s chair with his hand and sat back in it. “Mick. Mick, my memories. Something’s wrong with my memories.”

Mick nodded. “Gideon, set a course to 1989 Central City, Martin Luther King Jr Avenue or whatever it was called then.” Len’s frown was growing more distressed and he rubbed his arm in front of his eyes and though trying to remove cobwebs. “Now.”

Gideon responded. “Yes, Mr. Rory.”

Mick told Rip. “Strap in, Captain.” Rip took a look at Len and hurried out to the bridge to fasten himself in. Into the communicators, Mick snapped, “We’re jumping to 1989 in two. If you aren’t on the bridge and strapped in by then, we’re jumping with you standing.”

Everyone filed on to the bridge and, seeing Mick’s business face, grabbed a seat. “Sit. We need to go. Now. She’s fucking with the timeline.”

Mick fastened Len into the chair in Rip’s office.

Len turned up to look at him. “I can’t differentiate between actual memories and new memories.”

Mick put a hand on his shoulder. “They’re not new memories. They’re alternate timeline memories, and we’re going to stop her from making them real. In the meantime, sort out when the new memories are. Might help in the future.”

Len nodded. Mick strapped himself into the captain’s chair on the bridge. “Why are you flying instead of the captain or Sara?” Jax asked.

“Because I know where she is, and ‘cause I’ve had lifetimes of experience being the best at tracking people down. Any other stupid questions?”

Rip explained, “He was Kronos. And she’s apparently going after Mr. Snart.”

“She’s doing more than going after him, Captain. She’s turning him in 1989 and might be taking him with her after he turns. If the timeline sets like that, he’ll have been a bounty hunter from the age of seventeen onward.”

“Where is he?” Sara asked.

“In the office,” Rip answered.

Mick banked the Waverider off the wall of the timestream and the ship skipped down the timestream. “With all due respect, I really wish you wouldn’t do that with my ship.” Rip said.

“With all due respect, you can shove your complaining up your ass, Captain. That particular part of the timestream gets timeships where they need to go faster.” Mick grunted. “And sometimes we just do it for fun.”

Jax stared. “How many times have you been drag racing through time?”

Mick nodded at him. “Too many to count right now.”

Ray laughed. “So we have an answer to what does a time bounty hunter do when bored.”

“Haircut.”

“Yeah?”

“Shut up.”

“Yes, Mick.”

“To let you know what you’re going to be dealing with if we don’t get there before she kills my partner, she’s going to take him into the bounty hunters. If she does that, I’ll either be dead, in prison for life, or a bounty hunter soon after Snart is. So I’ll stop existing here, possibly to be Kronos. So it’ll be you, Birdie, Hawk, Kid, the Professor and the Captain up against a Snart taken to work on his planning without his dad standing in the way, or things like morality. My money’s on Snart.”

“Iepetus. My name would be Iepetus,” Len said from the door. He was clutching the door jam from the office to the bridge and looking out over the group.

Mick turned to him and surveyed his eyes and posture. “Fuck, that’s not a good thing.” 

Len walked over to an empty seat without stumbling and without being visibly disturbed by the motion of the timestream. He glided down into it and stretched his shoulders then reached up and brought down the strap as if it was an afterthought. He turned to nod at Jax, closest to him. Jax recoiled. 

Len raised an eyebrow at him. “If I wanted you dead, you would be even without my new memories.”

Mick froze, his hand on the clutch. “Jax, I can’t look right now. Are Snart’s eyes slits?”

Jax nodded. “They are.”

“Damnit.”

“ _Kronos_ ,” Len drawled in exactly the same closeness and slight exasperation as he reserved for Mick. Then he stopped, shook his head, and his body seemed to shrink as he put his shoulders down, and corrected the name he was using. “Mick. Damnit.”

Mick growled. “Snart, I want you to tell me if you get any new scars in vital places.” 

Len nodded. “Got it. I don’t feel any new ones currently.”

Mick banked the time ship again and it blurred back in time and then he shot out of the timestream. “There you are, Pilgrim, you bastard,” he said and spun the Waverider around and dropped her down next a thing that when you looked closely was glimmering. 

“You saw that?” Kendra asked.

“I am trained to spot timeships.” Mick lifted the fastener and got up. “Gideon, suit me up. Bounty hunter 1-5-2 with fire lock.”

“Yes, Mr. Rory.” 

“What is that that you just had Gideon make?” Ray asked.

“My favorite suit.” Mick grinned. “Also, designed to handle the Pilgrim.”

Len nodded. “Go get her.”

“You go to med lab,” Mick said back.

They strode off the ship with Mick in full gear with a flamethrower, Ray in his suit, Kendra hawked out, Sara with her staffs, Jax and Martin merged, and Rip with his gun. Len started to med lab. Teenage Sara and Mick were told to keep an eye on Len as well. Len was put under Gideon’s care and told to stay there no matter what. Teenage Mick sat beside him. “Hey, Mr. Snart, you’re going to be okay,” he told Len. Len smiled at him, though moments later, his eyes went wide in pain as a spot on his arm began to scar. Teen Mick watched with horror as the implications of what they were doing hit him. Teenage Sara wasn’t much better.

Adult Mick cut away the side door of the Pilgrim’s timeship and strode aboard. “Grant, where is she?” he demanded of the timeship’s AI.

“Front A wing, Kronos,” the AI responded.

Kronos pulled out his heatgun and plugged it into his suit. “Birdie, keep an eye on me. I need to become Kronos again. If I don’t come back, knock me out.”

Sara nodded. “Got it, Mick.” 

He rounded the corner and saw the Pilgrim with a knife, digging it into a teenage boy with dark curls and covering his mouth, though it was clear from her hand and his jaw that someone had bled. 

He flinched as it went into his arm and bit down on her hand, struggling to grab the knife. “Fight as much as you want. It’ll only make you a better bounty hunter.” 

He did something and she pulled back, frowning at him in confusion. He took the moment’s distracting to grab the knife and slip it out of her hand.

Mick laughed and shot at her with his flamethrower. She looked up and him, drawing back from the flame. “Kronos!” she hissed, recognizing him. 

He aimed again and caught her in the blast. She touched her wrist. 

“Snart, move!” Mick shouted.

The teen Len slid off the desk she had him on, wincing and holding his abdomen. The lower half of his face was covered in blood. His eyes took in the Kronos armor, and he nodded, his hand tightening on the knife. Mick knew the gesture and headed it off at the pass. “No. I got it. You go.”

Young Len’s sharp eyes took in who would do the most good and slid over to Sara, keeping his body low. “How’re you?” he breathed.

Mick waited until Len was behind him then touched his own wrist panel and approached her. He felt himself enter her force field. It was a sensation in his gut, but that’s what his suit was designed to counteract and besides, he had walked beside Len when he was experimenting with having his cold gun shoot a field to slow people down. 

He aimed his heat gun at the Pilgrim and shot it. It hit her and she hissed, putting out her arm to protect herself. “Kronos. Why are you serving them?”

Mick grunted at her. “I have my reasons, Pilgrim. Why did you go after my partner?”

“You know why, same as I do. And you should be thanking me for going out of my way to keep him alive. You said you would turn him. I assumed you meant to come back after you did it. So I turned him for you and now you can have him as a bounty hunter. Incredibly talented individual, by the way. My compliments.”

“Yeah, fuck you too,” young Len said.

The Pilgrim flashed him a smile then turned back to Mick. “Do you want to place bets on whether I can get to them before you can block me, Kronos?” 

“I will light you on fire. And this fire will burn through your suit.”

She inclined her head. “You’re on.”

He shot at her. She tapped her wrist, and to those who were not in Kronos’ suit’s protection, it seemed she started moving at a speed similar to the Flash. 

Kronos followed her with his gun, turning after her, his fire shooting after her as she moved towards the rest of the Waverider crew. 

The fire wasn’t fast enough though. The second it left his gun, it was caught up in her force field. 

He lunged at her himself. The suit’s protection held. He was able to move fast enough to catch her around the waist and shoulder. 

Before he could completely immobilize her arm, though, she threw a knife at young Len. Mick snapped her neck, but the knife had already been thrown. 

Everything started moving real speed again. The knife hit Len’s abdomen. He gasped and sagged against Sara. Mick dropped the Pilgrim’s body and strode over to Len. He was still conscious, but there was blood on his hands as he pressed them into his abdomen. 

“Snart, let me see.” He pushed Len’s hands out of the way and observed the dagger through Len’s side. He yanked the dagger out and froze the injury. Len made to protest but his legs gave out under him as Mick adjusted him in his arms. “Get the body,” he instructed the rest of the team and strode aboard.

Teenage Mick and Sara stood as he strode into med lab. “Oh my god!” teen Sara said.

“Is he alright?” teen Mick nodded at the young man in his arms.

“Is he?” adult Mick nodded at adult Len.

Teen Mick shook his head. “He’s got a scar on his arm and a really bad one just formed right here,” he informed the man in the Kronos mask.

Adult Len said, “He’s still got two sets of memories, Kronos.”

“Sara, take off my helmet and go make sure they have the Pilgrim’s body,” Mick said to teen Sara. “Tell the badass lady I’m still me.” She unfastened his helmet and left the room.

Mick looked down at young Len in his arms. The teen frowned at him. “Move your hand so I can see how bad she got you, Snart.”

“I got it,” teen Len insisted.

“No, you don’t. Now let Mick take a look,” adult Len said to him.

“That’s Mick?” Teen Len tried to peer up at him.

“Yes,” Len said, “Mick given thirty years.” 

The teen tried to rotate around in Mick’s arms and peer up at his face, but then tensed up and cried out. “Oh fuck,” he breathed.

Adult Len blew air through his mouth. “That’s gonna scar. What the fuck is it from?”

Mick answered him. “Pilgrim stabbed him.”

Young Mick said, “Wait, you’re me? Not just an angry relative?”

Mick turned to him. “Yeah. I’m you. Have your moral crisis later. Or actually, not at all. You were never very good at it. For now, help him into the bed.” He nodded at the empty med lab bed.

Teen Mick guided young Len’s legs into the bed. “Now hold back his hands. This next part may hurt.”

“I got it!” teen Len insisted, peeling back his shirt, which was sopping with blood. “Oh shit, that’s a lot of blood.” He looked up at adult Mick and wrinkled his nose. His eyes were a little too wide though, and Mick could tell that was more of his own blood than he was entirely comfortable seeing. 

“Gideon, do your stuff,” Mick told the AI.

“Yes, Mr. Rory.” Both teen Len and Mick looked up at Gideon’s response.

Gideon medical arms reached out from the wall and began sealing the wound. “Oh fuck.” Teen Len grabbed for teen Mick’s hand. 

Teen Mick squeezed his hand back. “Hey, you’re alright. You got it.” 

Teen Len met teen Mick with a smile. “I take it you don’t know me yet, do you?”

Teen Mick shook his head. “No.”

“I’m Len Snart. We meet in juvie. I take it you already got your fire bug?”

“Fire bug?” Teen Mick blinked.

“Yep. Bug as in obsession with something.” Mick glanced down at his feet. “You already got it?” Len concluded from that gesture.

“Yeah,” Mick muttered.

“That’s cool. We’ll figure out a way to control it. ‘Sides, it’s useful on jobs.”

“Jobs?” Mick looked up in interest.

Adult Len reached out and took adult Mick’s hand. “I feel that this is screwing with the timeline.”

“Eh, they’ll be given amnesia pills,” Mick said, then turned to survey Len, who looked more relaxed and alert than he had been. “How you feeling?”

“The memories have faded. But…” He showed Mick a shiny, new scar across his abdomen, in the same spot as Gideon was now repairing on his teenage self. “It was closer than I would have liked.” 

Mick nodded. “At least she tried to turn you instead of killing you straight off.”

Teen Mick’s voice raised up in incredulity. “You talk a real big game for someone with a giant gash in your stomach.”

Gideon finished sealing the wound and began with something else. “Yeah - ow, fuck that feels weird.” Teen Len turned to Mick. 

“Gideon’s making sure it doesn’t get infected.”

“Oh.”

Adult Sara stuck her head in then. “How is everything?”

Adult Len nodded. “Everything’s fine, Sara. The alternate memories are gone.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter involves sex.

They returned their teenage selves, Len and Mick both inspecting their younger selves’ mouths to make sure they actually swallowed the amnesia pills before leaving them in their respective timelines. 

After they dropped teenage Len off, Mick tapped adult Len on the shoulder and brought him to medlab for another check and blood infusion. “I need you to tell me if it’s getting worse.” Mick held Len’s face to inspect his eyes, turning his face so his eyes caught the light. Satisfied they didn’t catch it in the way he was worried about, he took Len’s hands, feeling his fingers. 

Len noted Mick’s own fingers were cold. “Don’t you need an infusion too, Mick?” 

“I’ll get mine later.” He tugged Len’s jaw down so Len opened his mouth and reached up to stroke his teeth.

Len shook off his ministrations. “Do it now. We both know I’m going to turn eventually. I wanna know what I’m getting myself into.”

Mick met his eyes, a low growl escaping him. Len took his hand away from his mouth, interwove their fingers and began rubbing Mick’s palm with his thumb. Mick sighed. “You won’t like it.”

“Do it anyway.”

Mick got up and got a blood bag. Then, glancing at Len, he took a deep breath and changed. His eyeteeth extended into fangs. His eyes began reflecting the light in the medlab. His pupils took on the slitted appearance of cat eyes. His posture changed into a far more predatory one. He looked away from Len, his breathing growing deeper and more ragged. A change happened with his skin: Len couldn’t be sure if it grew paler or if the vein just became more raised, but he could see them running through Mick’s face and down his neck.

Len knew he should be terrified of watching it. However the only fear he felt was intellectual, and even that only as a worry for his partner. Instead, he felt his gut clench and his own throat tighten as well, as though trying to join Mick in feeding. And he could feel himself grow half-hard and was once again reminded of the lust part of bloodlust. He chided his body but didn’t tear his eyes away. 

Mick sank his fangs into the blood bag and drank until it was gone. Len’s body felt like a live wire watching him drink. When the bag was empty, Mick got up and walked over to throw it in the trash, and by the time he was walking back, his face was human again. He only met Len’s eyes after he had sat back down and was sure the traits were gone. 

Len realized he was holding his breath and let it out. 

Mick asked, “Scared?”

Len shrugged, considered and shook his head. “No.” He reached out and took Mick’s hand again. It was warm.

\--

Afterwards, the feeling of being turned on did not seem to go away. Not during the meeting about where Savage was most likely going to be, which revealed that the only time they knew where he was was 2166. Not after the meeting when they weren’t sure how to get him from that time. Len was trying to plan, but being turned on made it difficult to plan. He considered coffee, but found himself passing Mick’s room.

He went in to find Mick tinkering with his gun. “Mick.” Len got his attention and adjusted his pants. “You didn’t mention that one of the side effects of bloodlust was that I’d be walking around half hard all day.”

Mick turned to him with his eyebrows raised – in mock fascination, the asshole. “It happens in about half the bounty hunters. I couldn’t be sure.”

Len adjusted himself again. “Yeah, well, it’s making it difficult to think.”

Mick pushed himself back from his tinkering and did a full body visual survey of Len. “It does.”

Len narrowed his eyes. “Your considering expression leaves something to be desired, Mick.”

Mick grunted but did not turn back to his tinkering.

“You bastard, you gonna make me beg or you gonna come and do something about it?” 

Mick’s expression broke into a wicked grin. “Come here.” He gestured. Len smirked, settling himself down on Mick’s lap. Mick pulled him close and ground against him. Len rocked forward and exhaled, smiling at Mick. 

Mick unbuttoned his pants. First brush against Len’s cock in lifetimes for Mick and in a stressful few weeks for Len got a gasp. Mick looked up at his partner, who gave a nod to continue, and moved his free hand to cup Len’s ass and wrapped the other around Len’s dick. He stroked him a few times until Len’s cock grew hard, his breathing heavy. 

“How you doing, Len?” he whispered, his voice tender and rough at the same time.

Len rocked his hips forward against Mick’s. “Stop teasing and fuck me already, you ass.” 

Mick nodded and reached for his own zipper, pulling out his dick and pushing them together. Len watched Mick wrap his hand around both cocks and give them a hard jerk, the pressure of his hand firm against Len’s dick. Len groaned and bucked his hips, draping his arms over Mick’s shoulders. Mick laughed and began to move his hand more forcefully, the pressure still barely firm as he stroked. 

Len let his hands begin to trace circles on Mick’s back, in places they had found out years before made Mick feel like his body was tingling and floating at the same time. Mick groaned and tightened his hand on their cocks to keep stroking, hitting the level of firmness Len liked. 

Len pushed Mick’s jacket up his back and tucked his hands under Mick’s shirt, bare fingers circling those spots directly on Mick’s skin without the fabric separating them. Mick groaned and moved his hand off their dicks to let Len get him out of his jacket, making it easier to get at the spots. Once he was out, he moved his hand back to squeeze them, and Len traced his back with his nails, the little groove right between the burns running along his spine and the spot right above his left hip were two of Mick’s favorite places. 

Mick sped up his hand in response and did that thing he always did with pressure, where Len wasn’t sure whether he was doing them light or heavy because it took his breath away. He could feel them both getting wet with pre-cum as Mick continued. Len’s hands kept running over his back, faster now than before. 

And then Mick did something. Len’s breath hitched; his thighs were trembling; his hands could no longer running only at those areas but were instead running over Mick’s back with abandon.

Mick did it again and Len leaned forward and groaned, and heard Mick groaning deep in his chest as well. Then he could only clutch at Mick’s back as he came and felt Mick’s body respond as well. 

Len collapsed against him afterwards, sighing, his fingers still tracing Mick’s back and wandering along the raised flesh of his burn scars in the way he knew Mick liked. 

“How was that, Snart?” Mick breathed.

“That was good. That was real good,” Len breathed back.

“Has that taken some of the edge off for you?” Mick continued.

“Yeah.” Len traced the scar under Mick’s arm above his lower ribs with his fingers. It was a new one since the last time they had done this. “I missed that.” And as with most things Len said to Mick and Mick said to Len, it was never just on one level, and they both knew it.

“I did too,” Mick answered.

\--

Len and Mick were getting Len another transfusion later that day when Gideon announced, “Mr. Snart appears to have stabilized.” 

Len and Mick met eyes, Len recalling how the bloodlust had transferred into physical lust. “How do you mean, Gideon?” 

“I have taken a blood sample from Mr. Rory to compare against. In my estimation, the condition is not getting any worse. If you continue getting transfusions, you should remain at the level you now are. Additionally, your body might start interpreting the sign in a more human way.”

“So like needing to get laid instead of bloodlust?” Len commented. Mick raised his eyebrow and smirked.

“Yes, exactly, Mr. Snart.” 

Mick smirked at Len, who inclined his head.

When they got to Len’s room, Mick closed the door. “Now we both know enough to know stabilized means not getting worse. It doesn’t mean getting better.”

Len sighed. “If you wondering what my symptoms now are, I don’t feel as shitty as I did before. But the,” he gestured at his head, “Time thing is still ongoing. And the Pilgrim thing terrified me.”

Mick nodded. “There was nothing about her that wasn’t terrifying. And hot.”

Something about the way Mick said that made Len turn his gaze on him to consider his expression. “Mick, are you saying you slept with her?”

Mick’s eyes went wide in surprise. “No. I won’t deny that I wanted to though. Most of the bounty hunters wanted to. But she never slept with anybody. No one ever asked. The Time Masters probably would have had her erase anyone that tried.”

“Why?”

“Because they were bastards like that.” Mick shrugged then added, “I think they were looking at her to… I think the term the other bounty hunters used was ‘come up through the hawse hole,’ become one of them was a privateer when that phrase was used. Which she couldn’t do if she had a relationship, because the Time Masters didn’t let themselves have relationships.”

Len leaned forward, considering. “Mick, if they didn’t let themselves have relationships, how could our captain have a wife and son?”

Mick bit his lip but shook his head as though recalling something he didn’t want to. “I don’t know. But all of us – all of the bounty hunters – knew about it.”

Len gazed at Mick, interpreting that little headshake and then swore to himself. “Mick, off topic for a second. If you learned something as a bounty hunter that could be useful, there is no reason to keep it to yourself and no shame in having learned-.”

“I don’t think there is. I just don’t want to remember any of it,” Mick snapped.

Len held up his hand, indicating he would back off. “I can share it then, if you want.”

Mick huffed. “I can take care of myself, Len. One of the benefits to having lived lifetimes with them.”

Len stared up at him. “Yeah, but you don’t have to anymore. I’m your partner, remember?”

Mick sat down on the bed, giving a nod. Len inclined his head. Mick seemed to sit a little happier. 

“The Time Masters, they knew about it too. And from what I heard, seemed to be encouraging it. I think they let him have a family.”

Len nodded, taking that in. “You think they did it for a reason.”

Mick started shaking his head but halfway through it turned into a slow nod. “They never told me, of course, but I think they might have been deliberately screwing with the timeline,” he took a deep breath and looked at the floor, “and I think they were working with our prey.”

Len sat down on the floor and thought about the implications. “You have evidence of this?”

Mick sighed. “No. Nothing more than a hunch. This is the first time I’m verbalizing it.”

“Fuck,” Len swore. “We gotta tell the others.”

“They’ll never believe it. Not from me. Not from you.”

“If they don’t, we’re screwed.” Len considered, “Unless we leave. Call it quits. We could call it an Alexa job and just go home.”

Mick made a sharp sound that was part exasperated laugh, part sigh and part longing. “So you still feel like 2016 is home?”

Len looked at him, knowledge coming home that part of what Mick meant when he said that becoming a bounty hunter meant never feeling at home in the timeline again. “Lisa’s there. Central’s there.”

Mick looked at Len “Yes, but when?”

Len tried to call up memories of Central in the time they were from, and he managed to, but there was no clearer a connection with himself in 2016 as there was with 2006 or 1996 and he could not find a way to distance between memories. Finally, he pulled up memories of his cold gun and Mick’s heat gun. “2014, I got us our guns. You are Heatwave, and I am Captain Cold. And we’re having the time of our lives. If we go back to when we left, we can keep doing that.”

Mick laughed. “Alright. Let’s call this shit-show an Alexa job and go continue being supervillains.”

“Let’s tell the others they are walking into a trap.”

Mick sighed. “Okay. Let’s tell them.”


End file.
